Birthday on the Beach
Birthday Parties for Children with a Water Theme
Temperatures are high and tempers are short. How are you going to throw a birthday party for your child during hot summer days without having everyone indoors? A beach birthday theme is the perfect summertime birthday solution.
Decorating the Space
You can hold a beach themed birthday party indoors or outside, but you may not want to use all of these ideas if your celebration is indoors. To turn any space into a beachy retreat, you should:
- Put down a tarp or a painter's drop cloth. If you are indoors, you may want to use painter's tape to tack down the edges. Pour sand onto the tarp or cloth. White Caribbean sand is best, but you can save money by buying the more budget friendly yellow play sand or sand from a local quarry. If you opt for less expensive sand, try building dune areas for more realism.
- Add potted grasses and palm plants to the area. You may want to use a few of the big blow up palm trees available at most party stores.
- Use big sea shells and toy crabs to add additional ambience.
- Decide whether you want to use tablecloths on the sand or picnic tables off to the side as a place for the kids to eat. Picnicing on the ground can be fun, but a bit gritty. Even if they are careful, the kids will track sand onto the tablecloths.
Beachy Activities
If you are holding your beach party inside, some of these water activities may be a bit too messy. However, they are ideal for outside summer play. For whine free fun, make sure you have plenty of fluffy, dry towels on hand and ask parents to pack a change of clothes.
- Fishing for prizes is a popular game at carnivals and fairs. Bring the fun to your beach party with plastic fish that have numbers written on them in permanent ink. When a child hooks a fish, he or she gets the corresponding prize.
- Water balloons can be a bit hard to blow up and you will have to spend a ton of time picking up little plastic bits after the party. Soaker guns can lead to problems with parents who don't like weapons. So, why not set up a sponge fight? Cut regular sponges into quarters and soak them in water until they are soaking wet. Hand them out and step out of the line of fire. The kids can resoak their sponges whenever they dry out.
- Set up a "dig" in the sand by burying plastic jewelry, sea creatures and other party toys in different random spots. You may want to contain the dig to a sandbox to keep things from getting too wild.
- Musical chairs in the pool can be as easy as attaching pieces of waterproof tape along the side. Remove a piece each time you start a new round, just as you'd take away a chair with the traditional version.
Beach Food
Picnic food is ideal for a beach themed party. To make the food special, shop for baskets at your local thrift store so you can create a picnic lunch for each child.
- Hot dogs are traditional beachy snacks, but sandwiches work well, too, especially if the bread is cut into fish or shell shapes.
- Rent a snow cone machine from your local rental place so the kids can all create their own snow cones.
- Keep things cool with an ice cream cake.
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