Last updated on September 20th, 2022 at 01:52 am
Planning a carnival birthday party for kids? Here you will find some of the very best carnival birthday party ideas that will help you plan a perfect party.
Bright colors, games and balloons, all these can be associated with either a birthday party or to a carnival. Therefore, what could be a better theme for a birthday party, than to throw a carnival birthday party for the kids?
In case you are worried about the fact that in order to throw a carnival birthday party, you would need to hire a local park on rent, to be able to build a set-up which would be able to replicate a carnival, but do not want to spend so much money on the party, then let me assure you that a completely authentic and awesome carnival birthday party can be organized within the limited space of your backyard as well.
With a few inexpensive, but creative carnival accessories, and some really good ideas, you can throw the most perfect carnival birthday party for your kid.
To help you throw an amazing carnival birthday party, I have put together a list of 15 ideas, which are simple to implement and will still manage to bring a perfect carnival feel to your party.
1. Build Booths
The first thing that you need to do in order to give your backyard the feel of a carnival is to build separate booths where each booth would either be hosting a fun game for the kids, or would have some other interesting activity going on inside it.
One simple way to build these booths is to take tents of rent and put these tents up. However, if you do not want to spend so on hiring these tents, then there is another very simple way of building these booths. All you need to do is find some colorful and bright linen in your stock and some rope. With the help of the rope hang this linen on the tree in your backyard in such a way that they form partitions? Each partition would act like one booth.
If this is also not possible, then simply cover a small portion of the ground with cloth on three sides and place nicely decorated tables inside this enclosure, and each table can host different carnival activities for the kids.
2. Special Invitations
The invitations that you send out for the party should be in keeping with the spirit of the party. This means that you would have to prepare the invitations in the shape and design keeping in mind that its a carnival theme party.
One really good idea in this regard is to send out tickets instead of invitations to the guests. You can use brown construction paper or stripped wrapping paper and with the help of stickers, clothespin, etc., you can either make the design of a ticket booth on the face of the invite or any other image which makes the card appear to be an entry ticket for a special event.
The details of the party can all be mentioned on the backside of the ticket.
3. Give Directions For Fun
Since you would be hosting the party in your backyard and the guests would enter your house from the front gate, you need to make sure that right from the time that the guests enter your premises, they are able to get the carnival feel.
However, doing all this carnival birthday ideas and decorations right from the front entrance till the backyard can be both expensive and quite tiring as well, therefore, at the front gate, all you can do is simply make some special arrows and directions which inform the guests where the carnival is being held and lead them to your backyard, where all the fun will happen.
You can use simple cardboards and colorful letter and image stickers to make these directional signs for the guests.
4. Prepare A Separate Area For Food
While all the games and other fun activities are organized by you in the main backyard, you would need a separate area for laying out the party food. Keeping the food alongside the games can be risky and therefore it would be a better idea to set up the food tables in the patio.
Each food table should be decorated with colorful linen, balloons and other items which give the same a lively look. You can even place a party umbrella or a swimming pool umbrella on top of these tables. You can make a string of balloons and tie one end of this string to the umbrella and the other to the chair kept around the table.
Make sure that this corner of your carnival party is just as colorful, bright and fun as the games area of the party.
5. Making Decorations Fun
To keep the kids entertained you would have to plan lots of games and other activities for the kids to participate in and stay entertained. While most of the games and activities would be simply for the fun of the kids, you can also plan for some activities which would be fun for the kids and at the same time, they would help in making your party look even livelier.
You can ask the kids to make colorful paper straw garlands. This is a really fun activity for the kids and at the same time, the paper straw garlands made by the kids can be used by you for decorating your venue and added a lot more color to the space.
6. Carnival Games
The games that you are going to organize for the kids should all have a carnival feel to them.
Therefore, instead of trying to come up with new and innovative games, it would be better to stick to the age old, authentic carnival games which are usually played at the carnivals. These would include throwing the hoop, fishing in the pond, bursting of balloons with guns, etc.
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7. Welcome The Guests On Stilts
One very exciting sight for the kids is to watch the really tall people walking around in a carnival. You can also ask someone in your family to wear these stilts and stand at the entrance of the party and welcome all the guests.
As soon as the kids will see you on stilts upon entering the party, they would immediately get the feeling that they have come for a carnival and not any ordinary birthday party.
8. Get Tattoos For All Kids
Carnival party idea is generally organising the place for the kids to go crazy and wild. Help the children have a wild experience at your carnival birthday party by setting up a tattoo booth.
Of course the tattoo booth that you would be setting up for the kids would give the kids only a temporary tattoo, but even getting these tattoos made can be pretty exciting for the kids.
9. Arrange For Some Swings
Swings are one of the biggest attractions for going to a carnival. Merry go round, and the cart wheel are the two most popular rides at all carnivals.
If you can arrange for these swings to be temporarily set up in your backyard for the party, even without any other arrangements, your carnival themed birthday party would become a hit with all the kids.
There are places where these swings can be taken on rent at some very reasonable rates. Find the best deals and do arrange for these swings for your carnival birthday party.
10. Exchange Tickets For Prizes
Since it would very difficult for you to keep distributing prizes to the kids every time they win some game at the carnival, you can actually arrange for the kids to receive tickets for winning a game, and towards the end of the party, based on the number of tickets that each kid has collected, you can give them different prizes.
Collecting, counting and exchanging tickets for prizes is all very fun and exciting for the kids and they would actually love this concept, which is actually something that you would be doing for your own convenience.
11. Giving Option To Choose Their Prizes
You can make the prize distribution ceremony even more interesting and fun for the kids by laying out different gifts in different baskets. Set values for each basket, and the kids can choose a basket, depending on the number of tickets they have, and in exchange for the tickets of equal value of the basket, they can pick a gift from that basket.
This way the kids will be able to select a gift for themselves as per their liking.
12. Cut The Carnival Cake
No birthday party is complete without the cutting of the birthday cake.
The birthday cake for a carnival party should be designed as per the theme of the party. Also use special cracker candles on the cake to make the cake cutting ceremony special and also to make it appear like a firecracker show at the carnival.
13. Arrange For A Fortune Teller
It is not just adults, but even the kids love to meet a fortune teller. Arrange for a bowl, filled with fortune cookies, with some really sweet things written inside them for the kids and when the kids come to meet the fortune teller, she can make them eat a cookie and read out their fortune for them in an interesting manner.
14. Cotton Candy And Popcorn Machine
You can serve your special food on the patio, but where all the games are happening you need to set up a cotton candy and popcorn machine for the kids. These two are a must have at any carnival party.
15. Special Carnival Favors
Generally, when selecting favors for the kids, parents try to find items of utility. But when you are selecting favors for a carnival party, make sure that all the return gifts items are fun items. Therefore, you goodie bag can contain a clown nose, balloon animals, carnival stickers, candies in funny shapes, etc.
The above ideas should help you in planning a good carnival party, and depending on your space and budget, you can pick and choose the best ideas from the above list.
