homemade games - Homemade Birthday Party Ideas

Luau Party Games

Maggie Stewart from Associated Content has published a fantastic article with 15 Luau party games for kids to play. Look for The Great Shell Search, Musical Beach Towels, Lay on the Leis, Crazy Beach Dress and Dash, Luau Coconut Roll, Coconut Bowling, Hot Flamingo, Fish-Fish-Shark, Beach Bingo, Pin the Coconut on the Palm Tree, Pass the Kiwi, Flip-Flop Frenzy, The Great Poi Eating Contest, Sharks and Minnows, and Guess the Shells. Click here for 15 Luau Party games.

How to Make a Bean Bag Tossing Game

There are a few ways you can do this, a bean bag toss works well for all ages.

1- place a few baskets, buckets or rubbermain boxes at the end of a “lane” similar to bowling – each bin has a different point value

2- cut large holes from a piece of plywood and paint the area around the holes to indicate the points each hole is worth

3- forget about the values and just cut one hole – and paint a funny picture on the front, an open-mouthed clown would work well for a circus or carnival party. The name of the game could be “feed the clowns” or something.

4- shaped beanbags could change the game, too. If you have access to fish-shaped beanbags for example, you could paint your plywood to look like a sea lion or a shark. Food shaped beanbags can be thrown at a fruit stand. I’m sure that there’s something funny a beany baby could be thrown at. Any ideas?

For more carnival type games, see “Making Games.“

Pin the tail on the donkey

I will never understand why pin the tail on the donkey ever came to be. I do, however, understand that watching your blindfolded friend attempt to stick something to a prescribed place on the wall is fun. Here are some guidelines for making a homemade pin the ____ on the ____ game.

If you’re making your own game, begin with a piece of poster board. In my area, we can get them from the dollar store, 3 for a dollar for the white ones or two for a dollar for colors.

Figure out what’s going to be “missing.” For example, if you’re making a Minnie Mouse game, you may want to leave an empty space for the bow in her hair. If you’re making an animal-themed game, you could just do a large animal face- like a cat, and leave off his nose or something.

Use a pencil to sketch out your background image before you begin, then use acrylic or tempera paint to paint in the details.

You may want to find or create several of the “missing item” before you create the background so you can be sure that it fits.

Directions for Making a Scavenger Hunt

Making a scavenger hunt is a systematic process. Even if you don’t want to use a software program to design a scavenger hunt, you can still make a fantastic hunt activity. Nikki from Scavenger Hunt Party Games has developed a system for planning scavenger hunts that makes it foolproof, and workable for all age groups. She’s had a great amount of success with her system and it’s really easy to follow. I like that she understands what a challenge it can be to plan a party and makes the scavenger hunt program so easy to use. I also like that when we plan scavenger hunts the kids aren’t being shuffled from one activity to another, and it holds the interest of even the teenagers.

Wild Western Cowboy Party Games

# Wagons and horses Wheel barrow race
# Escape from Jail Divide the kids into 2 teams of bandits, each with a sheriff. The sheriff has to catch a member of the opposite team by touching them. They are then considered to be in jail and must stand still. Their team mates can rescue them by crawling though their legs but if they are caught doing so, they are also have to stand still and are in jail. First team to catch all the other bandits is the winner.
# Horseshoe toss Set up some plastic bottles filled with sand. The kids have to see if they can toss the horseshoe over the bottles. If you don’t have any horseshoes, just use rubber dog rings.
# Water gun shoot out See how many plastic cowboys they can knock down using water pistols
# Bandit hunt Hide some plastic cowboys around the yard or the house. See who can find the most.
# Boot Toss The children need to try and toss the bean bags into some big Wellington boots or a large cowboy hat.
# Panning for gold/nuggets Spray paint small bits of gravel in gold and bury in the sand box. Add water. Give each child a disposable aluminum pie tin with holes punctured in the bottom. Let them sieve the sand/water and see who can find the gold nuggets.
# Gold Rush Hide chocolate money around the yard or house and send the kids on a gold rush to see who can find the most coins.
# Rattlesnake rumpus Make a rattlesnake out of a long sock stuffed with a rattle at the end and then padded out with newspaper. Sit the cowboys/girls in a circle and put on some music. Whilst the music is playing, they have to pass round the rattlesnake but once the music stops, the person left holding the snake is said to have been bitten and sits out of the game.

Carnival Birthday Party Ideas

A carnival theme is popular for birthdays

Carnival Party Invitations

make it look like a carnival flyer using a desktop publishing program

send them “tickets” to your carnival party

Carnival Party Foods

cotton candy

popcorn

funnel cakes

deep fried anything

corn dogs

corn on the cob

hamburgers

frozen bananas

Carnival Party Decorations

use cotton candy bags to cover the wall so it looks like a cotton candy stand

use a roll of red butcher paper and make it look like curtains

make a “big top” with red and white streamers

Homemade Carnival Party Games

ring toss

pop bottle bowling

dart throwing

bean bag tossing games

throwing ping pong balls into fishbowls

basketball

Birthday Party Treasure Hunts

oh my goodness, I am so glad to have found the Riddle me program. I’m creative, but come on. This makes it so easy to plan scavenger hunts for the kids birthday parties. They love scavenger hunts, in fact it’s not just for birthday parties. We used one at the museum, when we planned a field trip once. I love that I can customize it almost brainlessly, to accommodate my older kids or the younger ones. And it’s easy enough that my 8 yr old used it to plan a treasure hunt for her friends when they had a little slumber party. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Homemade Birthday Party Ideas

Easy Balloon Arches

Print Pictures on Cake