Craft CornerSeize the opportunity to soak up the warm August weather with party themes best executed in the great outdoors! Check out the Scout Elves best ideas and inspiration for how to pull off these four, fun birthday bash themes that can take place in your very own backyard.
County Fair
There’s no better fodder for a birthday party theme than an event full of quick, easy cuisine and hands-on games.
- To Eat: Think corndogs, kettle corn, watermelon slices and soft pretzels. If you’re feeling ambitious, try recreating famous fair food like cotton candy, caramel apples, snow cones and funnel cakes. Finally, skip the cake and bury the birthday candles in a blue-ribbon-worthy pie!
- To Do: Most games you’ve seen at the local fairgrounds can be scaled down. Set up a ring toss using soda bottles and plastic rings, or have children shoot empty cans off of a table using water guns. Sack races and pie-eating contests are other activities children will hoot and holler for!
- Party Favors: Give each child an empty gift bag with their name on it. Have them tote it around to different game stations, collecting small prizes as they go!
A Roaring Good Time
Take it back to the Jurassic period for a fete crawling with adventure and scaly behemoths—well, scaled down versions of them, at least!
- To Eat: Use dinosaur-shaped cookie cutters to give any standard party dish some prehistoric pep (think dino-shaped sandwiches, quesadillas or cookies). If you want to skip a step, go straight for the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, found in the freezer aisle at most grocery stores. To top off the meal, have your party guests dig for their dessert by making dirt pudding cups with layers of crushed up cookies, chocolate pudding and whipped cream.
- To Do: Use your backyard sandbox—or create your own in an inexpensive kiddie pool—for a dinosaur dig. Hide plastic bones and “dinosaur eggs” (plastic Easter eggs) in the sand, and let each petite paleontologist sift their way through the granules with strainers, paint brushes and small plastic shovels.
- Party Favors: Grab a bag of inexpensive dinosaur figurines, and let guests adopt a reptilian friend to take home with them. A plant fiber liner can be used as a nest to hold the dinosaur, and plastic dino eggs filled with candy are the perfect addition to the parting gift.
Cinema Under the Stars
Bring Hollywood home! Make your own small, outdoor movie theater by screening a film onto a large white sheet. Once set-up is complete, sit back and relax as kids enjoy a flick of the birthday child’s choosing!
- To Eat: Create a popcorn bar, and offer different flavors of popcorn and fun seasonings, like ranch from a salad dressing packet, cheese dust or a sweet cinnamon sugar mixture. This same bar concept can be applied to candy, nachos or any other movie theater munchies.
- To Do: Since the movie will be the main attraction, have guests come dressed as their favorite film character. Start the party by having a costume contest where the winner will get a prize!
- Party Favors: Fill plastic popcorn tubs with candy or popcorn packets for everyone to take home.
Flit with the Fairies
Free children’s imaginations with a party that will let them play the part of magical, woodland creatures for a day. Kid tested, Mother Nature approved!
- To Eat: Try making sandwich wrap “snail shells” with tortillas and filling ingredients of your choice. Fill the wraps with cheeses and meat or peanut butter and jelly. Trail mix filled with nuts, raisins and twig-like pretzel sticks is another yummy, nature-inspired offering.
- To Do: First, outfit each guest with a pair of glittery fairy wings. Then, let children create fairy wands and crowns using flowers, twigs and leaves paired with basic crafting supplies like glue, pipe cleaners and pom poms. Finish by handing out bubbles, hula hoops and jump ropes, and let guests prance about the yard like pixies!
- Party Favors: Everyone can take home their crafty woodland creations and the fairy wings you’ve already provided.
Get kid’s birthday party ideas for other months of the year, too!
