Welcome to our budget friendly Dr. Seuss party! Whether you’re celebrating Dr. Seuss day, back to school, or a special occasion, this party has some low prep and inexpensive ideas to keep activities going and everyone celebrating 🙂 Read on to check them out!
DECORATIONS
Chances are if you’re throwing a Dr. Seuss party, you’ve got a few Dr. Seuss books or items already in the house. If you’re OK with having guests take a look at some, bring them out and add them to the party area.
There are also quite a few places that sell Dr. Seuss items. To help keep costs lower, most of our decorations and favors came from the Dollar Tree as well as some homemade signs and labels for the games (link coming soon).
THE PHOTO AREA
Photo backdrops are a great way of setting a theme and double as a nice and easy activity! Pick a backdrop that functions as decorative, add a few props to the scene and you’ve got a great place to hang out!
While there are quite a few photo backdrop banners that you can pick up (Oh the Places You’ll Go and Dr. Seuss Party Kit, to name a few), we opted for a simple DIY cutout. Using a few Dr. Seuss Decorative Trim pieces, we decorated a White Poster Board and cut out a rectangle in the middle for someone to pose in 🙂 The poster board is a bit flimsy, so you could always reinforce it in the back with some upcycled cardboard.
Note, you don’t have to go all out with a photo backdrop stand either. Grab a few pieces of tape and an empty wall & you’re all set!
THE TABLE
With just a few Dr. Seuss themed items, you can create an awesome table perfect for your little ones!
We decorated the table, used some turquoise and red basic colors but then decorated each setting with a single image cut out from a Dr. Seuss Decorative Trim piece. We also created some book journals using Dr. Seuss Flashcards. (We did end up using Mini Brown Kraft Journals, though you can find a number of more decorative journals at the Dollar Tree). For a subtle but personal touch, we used Flashcards that corresponded to the first letter of their names 🙂 Then we added in a Dr. Seuss Bookmark into the journal.
Our “centerpiece” was pretty simple – just a setup of various Dr. Seuss books – Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, the Lorax, etc…
With the extra pieces of Dr. Seuss Paper Bookmarks, Dr. Seuss Flashcards, and Dr. Seuss Decorative Trim along with Dollar Tree Pencil Cutouts, we decorated the other tables using them as table scatter.
PARTY FOOD
No party is complete without some party food! You can always serve some typical (or fancier) party food, but you can also keep in theme with a few clever labels 🙂
This is by no means a comprehensive list but these are some of the foods that you could definitely serve up at a party 🙂
- Green Eggs & Ham
- Green Eggs
- Dyed hard/soft boiled eggs
- Avocado Deviled Eggs
- Dyed green egg salad sandwiches
- Ham
- Ham Sandwiches
- Ham Puffs
- Ham Pinwheels
- Green Eggs
- Cat in the Hat
- Fruit Kabobs (Strawberries & Bananas
- Red Jello & Whipped Cream
- Red Velvet Oreos
- Red Velvet Cupcakes
- One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
- Goldfish (Regular or Rainbow)
- Swedish Fish
- Fish Sticks
- Salmon Puffs
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas
- Corned Beef and Hash
- Pudding
- Roast Beef Sandwiches
- The Lorax
- Cotton Candy
- Broccoli
- Fruit
- Marshmallows
ACTIVITY TABLE(S)
We typically set up an activity table for kids to keep entertained while everyone arrives AND after all the games are done. These activities are simple and easy and typically don’t require too much supervision.
- Drawing: We had a few sheets for anyone to draw but also had some printouts of Make a Masterpiece from Seussville
- Make a Bookmark. We had a few options for this one, ranging from easiest to hardest.
- Love Reading Bookmark from Seussville. (simple coloring)
- Scratch Paper Art Bookmarks (scratch art)
- Simple Origami Bookmarks (origami)
- Book Favorites: For those who wanted to, we had a poster board for anyone to sign and/or write down their favorite books (also a photo opportunity once everyone had a chance to write down their recommendations!).
GAMES
What’s a party without some fun and memorable games??? Kids will definitely have fun just running around and coming up with their own games, BUT adding in a few themed games will definitely be a hit with your guests! Here were a few of ours.
- “Cat in the Hat” Hat Toss. You can definitely purchase some Cat in the Hat hats for this game. BUT with some simple upcycled cylinders (think Oatmeal containers or large powdered drinks) wrapped in white and red stripes, you’ve got a pretty sturdy Cat in the Hat resembling a bucket. Using those DIY hats as buckets and some Bouncy Balls or Bean Bags, you’ve got a game that everyone loves to play!
- Guess My Character. This is a fairly popular game, though this one is themed to Dr. Seuss characters – Have guests each write down which character they’ve selected. Then everyone else tries to narrow down the choices & guess by asking a few yes/no questions.
- Word Scavenger Hunt: There are quite a few printable scavenger hunt versions out there but we wanted to create our own based upon the books we had. The concept is fairly simple, so you could create one based on what’s on your bookshelves too 🙂 For the simpler version, we had some fairly standard words in Column 1 – they are common and found in either the titles of the books or some famous quotes. For the harder version, our second column had made-up words that are found in the various books – definitely less commonly used so digging into some books may be needed 🙂
And while we didn’t have these games at our party, you could also add these in for some more party fun.
- Scavenger Hunt. There is actually a printable Scavenger Hunt on the seussville.com website: Art All Around Us Scavenger Hunt, though this one focuses a bit more on artwork.
- Seussville also has a number of activities, crafts, recipes, and printables to check out for more ideas as well!
GOODIE BAGS & GIVEAWAYS
What’s a party without a few giveaways 🙂 The journals from the table settings were theirs to keep. They also kept any of the crafts they made throughout the party.
We also had some small bags with a few items: candy (of course :)), packets of goldfish, Dr. Seuss Erasers, Dr. Seuss Pencils, Reading Rubber Ducks.
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you so much for checking out our party planning article. Hopefully it gave you some great ideas for your next celebration!
If you did enjoy this, please let us know below or follow us on Pinterest. Also, If you haven’t already and are still looking for that perfect party theme, feel free to check out some of our other Party Guides or Ideas for Booklovers!
Happy Party Planning
