Circus Birthday Party Ideas

If your child likes carnivals and clowns, he or she will enjoy having a circus birthday party.

The following party ideas will help you set up a great carnival atmosphere. Have fun!

Resources:

One way to impress your circus birthday party guests is to send each one a balloon with a party message. Just blow up balloons and write your party details on them with permanent markers. Then deflate and place balloons in envelopes.

Mail your invitations to the guests. They will have to blow up the balloon to read the invitation (make sure you include that instruction in the envelope). Decorate envelopes with stickers or drawings.

You can insert circus party invitations into boxes of animal crackers (e.g. "Barnum's Animals" crackers by Nabisco).

You can write something like "Amazing acrobat (Name) is turning a Big Top (age)! Appearing One Day Only: (include date) at the (Last Name) Family Circus at (include address). Show Times: (include time) Don't Clown Around! RSVP to the Ringmaster! (include phone number)."

Your backyard is the perfect place to host your circus birthday party. Make sure you have lots of balloons for circus carnival party theme. Some blown-up balloons can be fastened to sticks, which are then stuck in the ground to mark the path to the front door or the drive. Have colorful paper streamers hanging all over your backyard. Hang 1 or 2 giant clown mylar balloons in the area.

Having a carnival booth or several booths will give circus birthday party an electric atmosphere. To make a booth, cover a table with a cloth, sheet, or contact paper. Cut plastic pipes (you can use PVC pipes available at hardware store) in size that will suit your booth. Duck-tape the pipes together to form a booth-like structure. Make different signs (e.g. Ticket Booth, Hotdogs & Popcorn, Balloon Animals, etc.) that will transform your booth for different carnival activities.

You can also make a "carnival tent": stick a pole in the middle of the yard and drape a sheet over the top. Pull the ends out and attach them to trees or fences.

Use clown and circus animal posters for circus party decorations. Place stuffed animals and clown dolls all over the area. Distribute items used in a circus, such as hoops, nets, batons, and so on, throughout your backyard.

If the weather doesn't cooperate and you have to entertain indoors - don't worry. You can have a festive atmosphere inside your house with tons of colorful streamers and balloons.

Ask your circus birthday party guests to come dressed as clowns! Suggest that they wear colorful, baggy clothes. Award costume prizes for the funniest, most creative, scariest, saddest, and so on.

You might want to set up a Carnival Ticket Booth at your driveway entrance and greet all the guests with a big circus birthday party welcome. One of your party helpers (or yourself) can be dressed as a clown. Provide guests with circus "Admit One" tickets and red clown noses. Here are some more circus birthday party ideas for introductory activities:

*Balloon Animals: This is a great introductory activity. It will put younger children at ease. You can blow balloon animals by using a balloon animal kit. It comes with full how-to instructions. Balloon animals are fun and they do involve kids into the birthday celebration.

*Bubbles: Escort the kids to a designated "Bubble Blowing" Booth. They receive small bubble liquid cups. Here is how you make a bubble solution. Mix 1/4 cup of liquid soap with 1/4 cup water and pour the mixture into a cup. Add 1 drop of soda pop (or sugar) and 1 drop of food coloring. Cut two small slits at one end of a straw and fold back the straw along the slit. Dip in bubble solution and blow.

Or purchase personalized bubble bottles. Personalize them to your child's name, circus theme party, or party guests' names. You can give these as great circus birthday party favors.

*Face Painting: Some of the kids will already have face paint on their faces. Bring the rest of the group (those that don't have the paint on) to "Face Painting" Booth. Apply a small amount of moisturizer on children's faces - this will make painting and cleaning up easier. Transform the kids into clowns by using liquid tempera paint, make-up, or theatrical face paint. Have washable body stickers, tattoos and stamps for added fun!

Give the kids small toy or candy prizes when they win carnival games. Circus birthday party favors can include colorful pencils, stickers, mini-Frisbees, small balls, magic tricks, gum, animal crackers, goldfish, gumdrops, licorice, clown hats, animal balloons, whistles, hula hoops, boxes of animal crackers, circus coloring books and so on.

*Pin the Nose on the Clown: This game is a variation of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey." Attach a clown mural onto a wall. Give "clown noses" to all your circus birthday party guests. Then blindfold them. Spin kids around a couple of times. Get them to pin the nose on the clown where it should be.

*Balloon Pop: Write down prizes on small pieces of paper and insert them into balloons. Blow up balloons, then have players try to pop them by stomping or sitting on them - blindfolded. When the balloon pops, have them collect the prize written on the note.

*Circus Animals Scavenger Hunt: Spread the stuffed animals around the yard. Get the kids to locate as many animals as they can. Make it more challenging for the older kids. Help them out by writing clues. You can award a special badge "Circus Ringmaster (or Animal Trainer)" to a child who collects the most animals. You can play a similar scavenger hunt version indoors. Instead of stuffed animals, you can use peanuts wrapped in cellophane bags (Make it a Peanut Hunt).

*Lion Taming: Have the kids form a circle, facing in toward the middle - they are lions. Choose one child to be the ringmaster and have her walk around the outside of the lions' circle. The ringmaster must tag a lion, then run around the ring and make it back to where the lion was standing before the lion touches her. If the ringmaster makes it back, she becomes a lion. If not, he or she is "eaten" and is out of the game. Play until one child remains in the circle.

*Feed the Tiger: This game will be a big hit with a preschool crowd. Make or purchase a poster of a tiger. Cut out the tiger's mouth part and attach the poster to a large box for support. Get the kids to throw bean bags into the tiger's "mouth". Kids will most likely want a second go around.

*Egg on the Spoon Relay: Divide your circus birthday party guests into two teams and give each player a spoon. Give the first player on each team a hard-boiled egg (don't tell children the eggs are hard-boiled). Have them walk as quickly as possible to the finish line and back to the starting line, balancing the eggs on the spoons.

Once the players reach the starting line again, they must carefully pass the eggs to the next players in line (without touching the eggs). The race continues in this manner until every player on one team has completed the task. (If a player drops an egg, he must get a new egg and start again.)

*Gone Fishing: Make fishing pole with a dowel, string, and clothes pin. Place an adult "helper" behind a board or some other barrier to hide. The children toss their fishing line over the divider and the helper clips a prize onto their pole. Younger children love this!

*Water Gun Shooting Gallery: Kids can try out their accuracy with this fun outdoor game. Set up a number of plastic bottles about 8 to 10 feet away from where the children will be standing. Place a jump rope on the ground to designate where they should stand. Give the kids squirt bottles or squirt guns. Let them try to knock down as many bottles as they can. For younger children, decrease the distance between the bottles and the shooting line.

*Walk the Tightrope: Make a balance beam using an eight-to-ten foot long two-by-four placed on the ground. Have the tightrope walkers line up at one end. Give the kids increasingly difficult tasks to perform as they move across the balance beam, such as walking across normally, sideways, backwards, with one arm in the air, toe-to-heel, blindfolded! Anyone who steps off the balance beam is out. Play until only one child remains. You can also use a masking tape instead of a beam.

*Egg Throw: Set a low table or a large cardboard box on the floor. Tape an egg carton on top. Give each circus birthday party guest twelve chances (using a dozen of Ping-Pong balls) to toss Ping-Pong "eggs" into the carton. Whoever gets the most in, gets to be the first person to take a photo with a birthday child.

*Training Seals: You will need a hula hoop for this game. You can ask an adult to help you hold a hula hoop, as you hold another one a few feet apart. The kids line up and jump through one and then through the other. The hoops are raised a little higher after each jump.

*Juggling Act: Here is a fun activity to try for kids of over 6 years of age. Check with friends or the phone book to find someone to teach the kids how to juggle.

Provide each kid with three balls, beanbags, or other items to juggle. When the kids get good at it, give them three different items to juggle, such as an apple, a sponge, and a ball. Make the juggling more and more challenging as they improve.

*Guess How Many: Put small candies in a jar and have the players guess how many are inside. Give the candies to the one who can guess closest to the amount, and give the leftovers to other players.

You might want to consider hiring a circus birthday party clown for a younger group of children (for 5 and 6-year-olds). He can face paint the children or entertain them with his silly tricks.

You can give out fake money bills ($1, $5, or $10) to children before the circus birthday party. They can use the money to buy food and drinks at the Carnival Party Booths.

*Carousel Cake: Bake two round layer cakes. Stack them on top of each other. Frost it with white icing. Stick peppermint sticks in a circle on the cake to form a carousel. Set tiny toy animals next to the peppermint sticks. Frost a pie pan and set it on top of the peppermint sticks for the roof of the carousel.

*Clown Cake: Bake a round cake and frost it with white icing. Decorate top to make a silly clown face, using sprinkles, jellybeans, colored marshmallows, and licorice. Let the kids make their own clown face cupcakes. Provide them a supply of icings, gels, sprinkles, and other edible decorations.

*Clown Dip: Mix 2 cups of sour cream and 2 tbsp of dry onion soup mix in a small bowl. Chill the dip for at least two hours. Spoon the dip into small dishes. To turn each dip into a funny clown face, add olives for eyes, a cherry tomato for the nose, a red pepper slice for the mouth, and carrot and celery sticks for the collar. Just before serving, add a tortilla chip hat and pretzel stick hair.

*Animalwiches: Cut out slices of bread, cheese, and meat using animal cookie cutters. Place all animal shapes on a platter and let the kids assemble their animal sandwiches.

*Circus Ice Cream Wagons: A slice of ice cream (vanilla/ chocolate/ strawberry striped variety) becomes a circus wagon when pretzel or cookie rounds are added for wheels and two animal crackers are placed in front to pull it.

*Carnival Fruit Medley: Cut watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew melon into pieces. Place fruit in a large bowl. For older kids, serve the melons on skewers, mixing the colors.

*Chips 'n Dip
*Hotdogs
*Corn on the cob
*Animal Crackers

*Carnival Food: Popcorn, peanuts, Cracker Jacks, pretzels, popsicles, cotton candy, caramel apples.

Serve lemonade at the Lemonade Booth. Here's a great "Licorice Punch" recipe: Buy 1 can of frozen lemonade concentrate, 1 can of frozen grape juice concentrate, and a can of frozen orange juice concentrate.

Mix concentrates with water according to directions on cans. Mix prepared juices together and pour in glasses. Cut both ends of licorice. Serve drinks to the circus birthday party gang using licorice as straws.