How to Plan a Carnival Birthday Party

Merry-Go-Round Cake

A carnival birthday party is fun and exciting for the kids. You can create a memorable event for your child's birthday party by using many home-made things and purchasing a few inexpensive prizes and decorations. I'll show you how.

Things You'll Need:

• Planning in advance
• Make use of things you already have at home as much as possible.
• Games
• Prizes
• Contests
• Carnival Music

1. Step 1

   There are many things you can do to create a fun carnival birthday party for your child. Many ideas are listed below. Gear the activities towards their ages. If they are young, let all children play the way they want to and give out prizes to everyone. You can hand out 10 tickets and a bag (to collect their prizes in) to each child as they arrive. Tell everyone that each game costs 1 ticket. Instructe them to put their ticket in the box themselves, play the game, return the balls or whatever they tossed back to the starting point, and pick out a prize at each station. Have some adults helping out for some of the games.

2. Step 2
   
   Rainbow Arch

   Make a rainbow arch grand entrance. Use helium balloons tied on a string or ribbon and anchor each end with a heavy weight. This is easy to at home do if you buy one of those helium tanks at the store.

3. Step 3
   
   Ticket Booth

   Create a ticket booth. Use poles, large thick paper, or cardboard and make a ticket booth any way you want. You can even make one out of a large cardboard box. Use paint or markers to decorate the booth.

4. Step 4

   Play some circus or carnival music. You can find music like "Thunder and Blazes" on iTunes. Play it when the kids arrive is a great into to the carnival theme.

5. Step 5

   Create a balloon darts game if you have older kids at the party. Just keep track of those darts so nobody gets hurt and put them away when the game is over. Make sure noone is in the path of the darts when they are being thrown. Use a large board and tack blown up balloons on it. Then, one at a time, give a child three darts to pop the balloons with.

6. Step 6
   
   Ring Toss

   Make a home-made ring toss game. You can make one from an old wooden coat rack or from some of those empty DVD or CD spindle holders. You can be creative and make it with whatever you can find at home.

7. Step 7
   
   Roller Ball

   Make a home-made roller ball game. Put a set of muffin tins inside a cardboard box. Place muffin paper cups in the tin and mark each with a number. Create a ramp out of a box (or whatever you have) and prop it up at an angle. Provide a set of small balls to roll into the muffin tin.

8. Step 8
   
   Frog Jumping Game

   Create a frog jumping game by using a large cardboard box with low sides. Paint the bottom blue for water and place small green paper plates on it for lily pads. Purchase some little toy frogs and let the kids toss the frog into the pond to see if the frog will land on a lily pad.

9. Step 9
   
   Bean Bag Toss

   Create your own beanbag toss game by using a large sheet of foam board. Decorate it however you want and cut some circles out, large enough for the bean bags to get through. Support your board somehow. You could make your board stand up by taping a hula poop to the top of the back and stretching it out like a ladder. You can purchase some bean bags or make your own from fabric and dried beans.

10. Step 10

    Hold a few contests such as a paper airplane flying contest, or a gummy worm hunt contest. The kids will enjoy the gummy worm hunt contest. Each kid gets a plate with three gummy worms covered in whipped cream, and a cup. The kids find the gummy worms with their mouths and tongue and put them in the cup as fast as they can without using their hands. Napkins are a must for this activity.

11. Step 11
    
    Merry-Go-Round Cake

    What party would be complete without a cake? Make a merry-go-round cake with chocolate horses and straight candy cane sticks. The top of the carousel can be a paper circle.

12. Step 12

    You don't need to spend a lot of money for this party. You can make many of the games from things you have home. Low cost carnival prize toys can be found found at www.smalltoys.com. You can search by price, the lowest cost items range from .01 to .10 cents each. They have many price levels and some unique toys too.

Tips & Warnings

• Plan ahead for a party like this.
• Use materials you already have at home.
• Get your children involved in preparing some of the games. It's a great opportunity for some quality time with the kids.