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Coolest Carnival 1st Birthday Party

This party was thrown for a 1 year old. Because we don’t have many friends with babies; it turned into a very cool summer bash for my two older kid’s aged 5 & 12. I believe this party can be thrown for a child of any age. I even used the theme for my baby shower. My 5 year old wants the same party for her birthday next year. I believe in throwing amazing out of the box birthdays. I did not get to take many photos because I was so busy entertaining. Thanks to lots of internet searching & Coolest Kid Birthday Parties members for all the great ideas.

The invitations were simple – I sent out evites. Easy to do if your inviting family & friends. Putting the decorations together was fairly easy lots of bright primary colors.

Coolest Kid Birthday Party

I purchased a carnival banner kit sold at Party City & Oriental trading $19.00. Covered the tables with a different primary colored plastic table cloth. A bunting streamer was included in the kit. I cut them & placed them at the end of each table for added flare. Set the table using white paper plates centered with blue dessert plates & wrapped with orange carnival tickets. Which the kids needed to play games (during baby shower it was used for don’t say baby). I added a themed circus/carnival balloon as table centerpiece weighted by a mini gum ball machine.

The food served was lots of appetizers/finger foods mini burgers, wingettes, hot dogs, chicken fingers & sandwiches. I set out snacks & treats to have along the way. What carnival/circus is complete without POPCORN. I mixed plain, caramel, & chocolate popcorn together & put in small bowls around on the tables.

Coolest Kid Birthday Party

I set up a prize & favor table. The kids all flocked to it because of the colors not the sugar. Each game played won a prize for the big winner. I put each prize in a plain white paper bag & glued a printed circus animal picture to both sides. Each child got to pick one (most got two) item from the favor table to take home. They had a choice of candy apples, cotton candy, clown cookies, & gumball machines. All favors were tied with a note that said “Thanks 4 Coming”.

Thanks to this site I found tons of great games to play. I paired the kids against children their age & size. To keep things fair since I had a wide range of ages. In order to play a game you had to pay with a ticket.

Can Toss – 3 cans set up as pyramid each child stood behind line & threw 3 small balls at the cans. First to knock them all down wins. The catch was if you ran out of balls without knocking anything down you had to run & get them & try again. I purchased a 12 pack of juice in a can. Poured the juice into a container & used the cans for the game. Purchased a 12-pk hackie sack balls from party city. The kids loved this game. The winner got to pick a prize from the table & the runners-up got to keep a ball.

Pass the Present (Hot Potato) – Our favorite family game we play this at every party. Take a prize wrap a gazillion times with wrapping paper, different types doesn’t matter. Have kids get into a circle start the music & the present gets passed around until the music stops. The holder tries to open the present as quickly as possible. This gets repeated until there is a victor. Great for kids of all ages.

Pin the nose on the Clown – We’ve all played this game as pin the tail on the donkey. I purchased the game from party city super cheap. But if you go to your local Staples they can print a clown picture for you in a mini poster size.

Egg Relay – I used 2 wooden spoons & eggs from Easter. Set-up a start & finish line with masking tape. Each child had to race to the finish line without dropping the egg. If the egg dropped I allowed each child to run back & restart until we had a winner. You can also purchase a set for cheap.

Limbo – Easy game I unscrewed the handle to the broom & used this to play the game.

Cake Eating contest – After we sang happy birthday to the birthday boy each child who wanted to play was given a small slice of cake. They had to put their hands behind their back & wait for me to blow the whistle. They dove in face first no hands allowed & had to eat the cake as quickly as possible. First one to finish was the winner. The baby got to play this game using his hands, LOL.

Coolest Kid Birthday Party

I made the cake myself and posted it here on coolest-birthday-cakes.com if you’re interested.

I was a little worried about the games not being entertaining for some of the kids. So much, I put out our small family size blow up pool. To my surprise nobody used it. I had such a wide range of ages 1 – 13. Each kid had a BLAST. All of the kids participated in every game. Everyone left with a smile on their face & some even asked their mom if they could have a party like this.

I hope I provided enough info for you to throw the ultimate bash.

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