Welcome to our budget-friendly ocean themed party! Though the weather didn’t cooperate with our planned outdoor water activities, we did manage to have quite a bit of ocean-themed fun on this day. Check out our post on decorations, crafts, games, and more!
If you’re looking for more Water Fun Ideas, check out our other Water Fun Posts & Water Themed Parties:
DECOR
We kept our party pretty simple with different shades of blue and white backdrops this time around. We picked up a few sets of Under the Sea but used basic plates, napkins, forks for the rest of the table, and spread out some craft sea shells. We also added a Fish Ring Toss Game for each kid by their plate. (Surprisingly, this game was actually a bit addictive for all guests. haha!).
We had guests go through a “Water Wall” before entering the party area (though admittedly we didn’t have as many streamers to cover the entire entryway and ended up placing a plastic white table cloth behind the streamers to completely hide the area. We did have a bucket with Goggles from the Dollar Tree to pass out for each kid (which went into their goodie bag), so they could ‘imagine’ being immersed in water before entering the ocean-themed party area 🙂
We had some Dollar Tree puzzles and fish card games around the party area for guests to play around with. Signs & fish net decorations were also from Dollar Tree 🙂
CRAFT TABLE
We had a few crafts for our guests to entertain themselves with before the games actually began.
- Simple Beading Bracelets. We picked up a pack of Sea Life Pop Beads from Michaels. We had other pony beads on the table as well, so one pack was enough for the party day 🙂 The beads fit well within pipe cleaners, which they used as the ‘string’.
- Wooden cut-out coloring. We found a few picture frames and whale cut outs from the Dollar Store and laid them out for kids to color. We actually ended up using paint pens and markers instead of the paint (forgot the paint brushes 🙂 ) but all worked well!
- We also had a set of ocean-themed sticker scenes for the kids to create their own scene with stickers.
FOOD & DRINKS
We kept this part of our party pretty simple this time around (hot dogs, pizza) but also had some seafood.
GAMES
We were, very unfortunately :’(, rained in on this day and so we had to keep our activities indoors. Other than the sprinklers and bubbles, though, we were able to manage with a few games 🙂
- Fish gliders. These were meant to be flown outside but we managed in a hallway with the kids taking turns. We left the gliders on the floor until everyone had their turn so we could see who went farthest 😉
- Fishing. We had planned to fill up multiple bins with overflowing water (which is not the best idea on an indoor floor!), so we filled up a single bin half way, laid out some towels, and let them fish in pairs.
- Fish Ring Toss. Though we had intended for fish ring toss to go into each kid’s goodie bag, we ended up using this as a bit of a competitive game to see who could catch the most rings.
So, in spite of the last minute changes, fun was had all around! AND the promise of playing with water balloons, bubble wands, and water squirters on another day was enough to put smiles on their little faces 🙂
GOODIE BAGS
We gave each kid a pail of some water and bubble themed items to play with. We picked up blue bubble wands and blue glow sticks from the Dollar Store and had some Whale Water Squirters from Oriental Trading. They also got to keep everything they made throughout the party (bracelets, necklaces, painted wooden cutouts, gliders, etc..)
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 🙂
