Birthday Party Ideas - Walkersville,MD

Hi J.,
if one of the other ideas that the girls gave doesn't work, try looking at amazingmoms.com. they have some great ideas for theme parties at home and give you step by step directions for activites. I love at home parties ( i have done them both) and the kids seems to have more fun when I have it here. best of luck!
diane

hello.... when my son was into scooby doo for awhile we did a 'mystery' where someone stole his presents and the kids had to follow clues to find it. kind of like a scavenger hunt. also, you could have the kids decorate sugar cookies or cupcakes. Thats always a hit and not too crafty. If you do a google search with whatever your son is into (sponge bob or whatever) you should be able to come up with some games related to a theme. That just remeinded me my oldest son is not into crafts either so we did alot of indoor 'relay' type things. The old fashion games like the relay with the egg on a spoon. Good Luck.

B.

Hi,

My little guy will be 5 next time around and has a February birthday. Yep, just had the 4 year old party and we're already planning the 5th birthday party. There is a 99% chance that he'll stick to this theme so we're starting early! We're going to go with a Pirate theme and I"m going to hide a treasure chest for the kids to find. The plan is to make a treasure map and they'll work in pairs. I'll send the teams in different directions so that we don't have clusters of children all together at once. I'm thinking maybe 12 children total. It's my hope that an activity will keep them focused and under control. Just a thought! Good luck!

How about a treasure hunt? Make a map with different obstacles on the way. And the end result could be a bag full of treats for each child. You could get some pirate theme decorations and maybe something for each child to wear. And whatever they make and/or collect could be their party favors. Or you could do a scavenger hunt with clues to find the hidden objects.

Decorate their own cupcakes, play bingo.

hi a friend of mine just had a b'day party for 8 yr olds but i see no reason why you can't do it to. here's what she did she got a bunch of small gifts of different things she went and got the big play money from like walmart and she told the kids at beginning of the party that you are having an auction of sorts and to earn the money they have to use manners and behave. if they help clean or do something for another person you give them money how much is up to you and its also up to you what you want them to do to earn it after its over the kids get to buy the gifts with the money they have earned. my friend had a sleepover but you can use it anyway it teaches then to use their manners at other peoples homes and it teaches them how to earn n buy stuff they may want. i thought it was a great idea being 6 is young but i think they will have some fun with it and it will help keep your home from being trashed badly. oh and put the gifts out so they can see them to give insentive to behave and use manners and anything you want them to do to earn the money. good luck!

KID CONNECTION....LOL I have done many partys there. The offer different coupons each month. You only pay for the children to a certain age and the adults and older ones are free. You can take in your own cake. They can play and run as long as they like. My daughter and son love it there. I love it cause when they come home they are pooped..lol and sleep well. You can buy food there. But you dont have too.

Hi! My oldest daughter is about to turn 19 years old, so I have LOTS of birthday party experience! The parties I held at home were always more expensive than the ones I had other places!! After I was done buying snacks (or lunch, if you choose), decorations, the cake/ice cream, paper goods, goodie bag stuff and supplies for games I had spent a small fortune. I'm not sure where you live, but around Olney & Rockville there are several locations that will hold your party for a reasonable amount of money. Some ideas are your local indoor pool, Putt Putt, an indoor play center or gymnastics gym, a science or nature center....I'd be happy to talk more with you about it and let you know where I've had good experiences.
If you're set on having your party at home, check out the Oriental Trading website...they have tons of cheap games, craft ideas, and supplies for any theme party. Good luck!!

My 3 year old loves Diego. Now I realize that 6 and 3 are worlds apart in ages... but a jungle theme can be really fun. At our party, 1/2 were 3 year olds, 1/2 were 5 year old siblings. To decorate, pick a room (consider leaving it up for a few days because it will no doubt look really cool and the kids will enjoy it) cut paper bags in long strips, twist them and tape them together with brown packing tape. Hang these all over the walls in a vine fashion (let them drape down in the door ways a little and wind them up the sides of the door jams. Then cut a bunch of leaves out of green construction paper (just buy a pack of green so you have enough) and tape those all over the place. We put them on the vines mostly but then put a few here and there to fill in around the room. One game we had was find the tree frogs. We had a bunch of little tiny frogs that we hid under leaves and behind vines. Once we found them all, we put a big blue plastic table cloth on the floor with tape and taped lilly pads to it (green construction paper). The pads had points written on them. The kids threw the frogs on the lilly pads to see who could get the best score. For your crowd, use the entire length of the table cloth and put some smaller pads far away so they are harder to hit.

Another activity we had was a scavenger hunt. The kids got animal beanie babies to take home (lucky our neighbor had a huge number of them that they wanted to get rid of... couldn't get to sell at yard sales, so they were free). I wrote a scavenger hunt type clue for them and hid them around the house. The kids had to figure out the clues (easier for the younger, harder for the older). Make them figure out what they are looking for and then figure out where it is. If you don't have access to inexpensive stuffed animals, go to the dollar store and look for a package of plastic jungle animals.

Another activity was an obstacle course. We had blue painters tape laid out on the floor to indicate water and brown tape in the shape of rocks. The kids had to jump over the water, hop from rock to rock, crawl through a tube, hop back across the water and crawl through a cave (chairs set up back to back with space between, sheet draped over.

The kids had a blast doing it and then we told them to get in a line and do it as fast as they could, round and round. They were crazy and laughing constantly.

Another thing you can do is have them do pillow case races... potato sack races done with pillow cases. Also, use the pillow case to create 3 legged races.

You can fill a back pack full of all kinds of survival equipment... let the kids see it for 1 minute then put it away and have them write down (or yell out) what they remember seeing.

Another idea is to get out some survival gear and have the kids dress up in it. Get out some large jeans, a big hat, a big shirt, some boots, etc (adult size) and make them get dressed up in them. Make it a race and make two teams. They have to put all the items on then do some activity (jump up and down 5 times or do 5 jumping jacks, something that can be counted out loud) and then disrobe and tag the next team mate.

You can play the whisper game and have them all in a row. Whisper something like "slimy snake" into one kids ear and tell him to quietly pass it on. See what the last kid thinks was said, then rotate and put the first person at the end.

You can have fun food too, grapes are snake eggs, raisins or craisins are bugs, potato chips are beetle wings, hot dogs (cut into long 1/4 strips and then boiled so they curl up) are worms. Decorate the table with snakes and spiders (get some now since it's Halloween) and other creepy things. I saw a great web site with ideas like this when I was putting on the party. Search for Diego theme party ideas and see what you can find.

Another thing they suggested was to give the kids their goodies in brown paper lunch bags. Print out a label (cut it out of regular paper) that says something like "Andy's Supplies" and tape it to the front. You can find cool things to add to the goodie bags like magnifying glasses at Party City. I think I got a bag of 12 for something like $4.

I'd love to give you more ideas. We really had a blast with this theme and I'm even suggesting we find a way to do this for our Vacation Bible School in 2009 because it is so versitile and fun. If you decide to go with the jungle theme, feel free to contact me and I'll help you think of some more. Consider, the obstacle race and sack races can be indoor or outdoor so that is helpful if you have bad weather.

Good luck
Liz

Why don't you have it at Mcdonald's? They have the play area and seriously it's not as expensive as you might think. It is actually pretty cheap b/c the cake and food is included in the price.
Well, just an idea I hope everything works out for you.

Not sure what your house setup is like, but would something along the lines of a treasure hunt be feasible? You could plan it for indoors, but if the weather breaks in time, you could easily transfer it to outside.

You mentioned he's not big on crafts...but what about fingerpainting? If you have a garage, or even a driveway that's relatively flat, they could do it there, as long as it isn't raining.

These aren't the grandest of ideas, but maybe it will spark something!