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.

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.

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.

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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