Save the Carnival! Plan a kid party with an imaginative twist – before they can play in the carnival, they have to save it first! Take your young guests on an imaginative journey to save the lions, tigers, and bears then have fun gathering ‘tickets’ to trade in for prizes!
Try out a few of these suggestions below and let us know how it goes and what you think!
If you’re looking for some more circus or carnival ideas, we have a few other parties and posts. Click here to check them out!
INVITATIONS
For parties, get your guests in the mood with carnival themed invites. You can find a few online or in stores, send some email invitations, or just print them out yourselves.
If you’re going with the “Save the Carnival” Theme, you can add a note in your invite:
Come one! Come all! Prepare to have a ball!
For one day only, hurry, don’t move slowly!
Join us for [kid’s birthday] birthday!
We’ll need you to help save the day!
DECOR
We had a few carnival and county fair decorations from Oriental Trading, as well as red gingham tableware from the Dollar Store. With just a few store bought props plus some homemade ones, we were able to make it look pretty ‘circus-y.”
FOOD
Appetizers:
- Popcorn (in fun popcorn bags)
- Peanuts
Main Course:
- Corn Dogs
- Hot Dogs
- Cheese & Pepperoni Mini Pizzas
Dessert:
- Cotton Candy
- The cakes were dressed up with animal crackers & a toy car
Drinks:
- Pop
- Juice boxes
GAMES
For our games, we told our guest that mayhem had taken over the carnival and we needed their help to save it. We used a lot of our stuffed animals and other toys around the house along with a few additions that we made from craft materials.
- For the first game, we created some lion, tiger, bear, and other large animal footprints and scattered them in a path around the house. We placed stuffed animals at the end. The kids had to try and find the big cats before they caused more havoc at the carnival.
- Once they found the lions, tiger, and other animals, they had to place them in cages. We used laundry baskets (but you can also use any boxes) as their cages. Then we “lured” the stuffed animals in with toy food. Most of the kids wanted to toss the animals in, so we made that a game as well.
- The next task was to return all the eggs to the bird’s nest so that all the bird parents would calm down. We hid easter eggs all around the house and had a few “nests” (brown kraft paper crumpled into something that resembled a nests). The older kids weren’t allowed to touch the eggs and had to use two large wooden spoons to make it a bit more difficult.
- The last and final task to save the carnival was to find the nocturnal animals that were still out and about. We used stuffed animals that made sounds (although you could easily use a mobile device to play animal sounds). We then blindfolded the kids to simulate “night time” – one at a time to keep some order – and had them try to find the animals by hearing. ‘
- Now that the carnival was saved the kiddos could enjoy the games! We had a few carnival games around the house where kiddos could play as much as they wanted. We did simulate a “ticket” system where kids got a few tickets after each game (similar to the arcades)
- Using the Carnival Game Set, you can get a few games. For each game, the kids got a ‘ticket’
- Bean Bag Toss (into the clown board)
- Ring Toss
- If you’ve got a few extra buckets, you can re-use the bean bags for a bucket throw.
- Rubber duckies in a pond. So, since we weren’t “manning the stations”, we didn’t actually use water. We had rubber duckies in a large box (covered in blue paper) and blue tissue paper on the inside to make it look like they were in water. Each rubber ducky has a # on the bottom which corresponded to the # of tickets they received.
- Knock the pins. We used liter pop bottles and had our kids color and decorate them before the party. Then we used one of their small soccer balls for the kids to roll and knock down as many as possible.
- Go Fish. We had a go fish game and had each color fish equal a specific #.
- Using the Carnival Game Set, you can get a few games. For each game, the kids got a ‘ticket’
GOODIE BAGS
We did pass out some goodie bags with just a few trinkets in there, but we also had a table of items to trade in their tickets. We used some basic, small toys (nothing too large) and candy but the kids were excited to pick out their own things.
Oriental Trading – Carnival Gift Bags
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 ideas: Party Guides!
Happy Party Planning 🙂
