Ultimate Guide to Throwing a Kid’s Birthday Party

A birthday is one of the most celebrated occasions in the world, and some people would even have extravagant birthday parties where they will travel to a different country and throw a party in a luxury hotel or events place. For kids, they don’t really need an expensive and extravagant birthday party, as they don’t fully grasp the concept of that kind of party yet. What they actually want for their birthday are fun activities, delicious food, and amazing decorations. 

Fortunately, planning and organizing a birthday party for kids is relatively easy as long as you know what to do. To know more, here is the ultimate guide to throwing a kid’s birthday party.

Ultimate Guide to Throwing a Kid’s Birthday Party

Plan Out Your Budget

wallet with money and cards

The first thing you need to do in planning a kid’s birthday party is to determine your budget. By having a budget, you won’t overspend and underspend on food, decorations, and other items that you will need for the party.

Overspending can be a big problem, as it will mean that you have to go above the budget and use money that you don’t really intend to spend. On the other hand, underspending can also be an issue, as it basically means that you skimped on specific aspects of the party. If you underspend on decorations, it is only on the day of the party that you will realize that the banners, posters, wallpapers, and other pieces of decorations for a specific area of the party are lacking. So, determine your budget first to make sure that you have the right amount of money to buy items and products for the party.

Pick a Theme

princess-themed birthday party

The next step to planning a kid’s birthday party is to pick a theme, which is a relatively easy thing to do if you know what your son or daughter wants. Kids develop favorites at a very young age, as they tend to focus more on hobbies, TV shows, movies, and games that they are actually interested in.

So, picking a theme for a kid’s birthday party is easy, as all you have to do is to ask your child what she wants. However, if you are planning to keep the birthday party a secret, you shouldn’t mention anything about the party and just ask him or her about his or her favorites.

Select the Guests You Want to Invite

cupcakes for guests

If you have a fairly large budget, then you wouldn’t have to worry about selecting guests that you want to invite for the birthday party, as you can invite almost all of your friends, family members, and loved ones. However, if you have a relatively small budget, then you may need to plan who you are going to invite.

Since the party will be for kids, it would be great if you just invite family members or friends that have kids since they are the ones that will enjoy the party the most. In addition, you may also want to invite the closest friends of your son or daughter so that he or she will have a lot of fun playing activities and games at the party.

Choose the Food for the Party

buffet for a birthday party

Of course, a birthday party wouldn’t be complete without having delicious food available for the guests. There are many catering businesses that you can contact so that you will have food for the party. However, it would always be best for you to see the menu of these catering businesses first so that you can be sure that their food can be enjoyed by both adults and kids. So, you should get catering that has dishes or meals that are suitable for kids. The foods you may need to have at the birthday party should include children’s favorites like chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, burgers, fries, and others.

Besides the food, you may also want to get disposable plates, spoons, forks, and knives that guests can use so that you don’t have to spend a lot of time cleaning up after the party. Here are some of the best disposable plates and cutlery sets you can buy online:

  • Stack Man 100% Compostable 7-Inch Paper Plates – these disposable paper plates are made of sugarcane fibers, which is a renewable, sustainable, and biodegradable material that you can easily dispose of after use. In addition, these plates are also compostable, so they can be used to make compost that can be useful for farming and gardening.
  • BIOCEAN 100% Compostable Cutlery Set – this cutlery set, which includes a spoon, fork, and knife, is made from compostable and biodegradable corn. Despite being made from corn, this cutlery set is quite durable, as it wouldn’t break easily compared to other options.
  • BIRCHIO 250-Piece Biodegradable Paper Plates Set – this set comes not only with two sizes of disposable plates (7-inch and 9-inch), but it also includes biodegradable spoons, forks, and knives. The plates are made from sugarcane bagasse fiber, while the cutlery set is made from cornstarch. Besides being compostable and biodegradable, this set is also microwave and freezer safe.

Buy Decorations

balloon decorations

Once you have chosen the dishes or meals that will be served at the birthday party, you can now pick what decorations to use for the party. If you are planning to organize the party in your home’s backyard, then you wouldn’t have a difficult time imagining where and how you are going to place decorations. But if you are going to rent an event place for the party, then you may need to check the location every now and then to make sure that you are buying the right size of decorations for specific walls or areas.

Decorating a small area can be done by you or a few friends and family members, but decorating a large area may require you to hire some helpers so that the process would be much faster and would need less effort. Be sure that the decorations you have bought are suitable for the party’s theme.

Here are a few party decoration sets that you can check out for reference:

  • FECEDY Colorful Birthday Party Decoration Set – this set includes a colorful happy birthday banner, as well as paper flags, garland swirl streamers, paper circle confetti banners, and honeycomb balls. What’s great about this set is that it can go well with any theme for kids’ birthday parties since it doesn’t have specific characters, brands, or franchises attached to it.
  • YGBMDZ Rose Gold Party Decorations Set – for kids that like the colors pink, white, and gold, they would definitely like this pink and gold birthday decoration set by BRT Bearingshui. This set includes a pink and gold happy birthday banner, a set of tissue flowers that are pink, gold, and white and color, as well as balloons that match the colors of the banners and tissue flowers.
  • MAMESO Hot Race Car Birthday Party Decoration Set – This set has 57 pieces of birthday decorations, which include a large birthday banner, a cake topper, cupcake toppers, balloons, hanging swirls, and more. What’s interesting about this set is that it has a race car theme, so kids that enjoy cars and racing will love this decoration set.

Plan the Activities and Games for the Party

games for kids

In order to make the birthday party more fun and enjoyable for kids, you would need to plan and organize activities and games to play. Some of the games that kids can play include Bring Me, Trip to Jerusalem, a dance contest, Hopscotch, potato sack race, and more.

You may also want to prepare board games that kids and adults can play during their free time at the party. Here are a few board games that you can purchase online:

  • Hasbro Gaming Trouble Board Game – this classic board game can be enjoyed by kids ages five and up. In this game, players would have to press the pop-o-matic bubble at the center to determine how many steps their pegs can walk on the board. The player who first gets all four of his or her pegs on the Finish space wins the game. But winning isn’t easy in this game, as opponents that land in the same space as yours would force you to move your peg bag to the Start space.
  • Hasbro Gaming CONNECT 4 – this is a very simple board game wherein two players will compete on who gets to be the first to connect four discs of the same color in a row. While this game is fairly simple in terms of mechanics, it actually requires strategy in order for a player to win more rounds.
  • Spin Master Games Sorry! Giant Edition – a giant version of the classic Sorry! board game that is fun to play and can actually be a nice decoration piece for a board game-themed birthday party. This simple board allows players to spin and move large-sized pawns around the board while trying to be the first one to get three pawns back to the home space.

As for the activities, you can include opening remarks to welcome guests to the party, and you should also include the obligatory singing of the Happy Birthday song and blowing of the candles on the birthday cake. If you want the activities and games to have a better flow while also being on schedule, you may want to hire a host or ask a family member or friend to be the host of the party. A kid’s birthday party should last for about one to two hours, so plan out the activities and games you want for the party in that timeframe.

Create Invitations

invitation card template

After you have everything planned, you can then start creating invitations that you will send to the guests. Invitations can come in the form of physical cards, which has been a tradition for invitations, but to save paper and other materials, you may just opt to send digital invitations.

But physical invitation cards are much better since they follow tradition, and they can also be stored as a keepsake. You can design the invitation cards on your own using thick paper and coloring materials, but for a professional look, you may want to hire a graphics designer to design the invitation card for the party.

Make Sure Everything is Ready Before the Party

rainbow birthday cake

When you have already ordered food for the party and set up all the decorations, you would then have to make sure that everything is ready at least one day or a few hours before the party. You may need to check the decorations every now and then to know if they are still secure in their place, and you may also have to contact the catering service to know that they are right on schedule when it comes to cooking and delivering the food you ordered.

These are all the things you need to do to ensure that the birthday party is properly planned and organized. Our kids deserve the best birthday parties, so it is our responsibility to give them the best even for their birthdays and allow them to enjoy the company of their friends and family members.