Construction Birthday Party Ideas

Construction birthday party is a great theme for any kid's birthday. Children love behaving and acting like adults. So it will be fun for them to become construction workers for a day.

You'll find various construction party ideas on this page to keep the kids excited. Let's start with...

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For construction party decorations, it would look pretty cool if you decorated both the inside and the outside of the house with orange, yellow, and black balloons. Spread construction birthday party traffic signs around your backyard. You can put small orange construction cones lining the walkway to the front door. Have a sign outside of the house that reads "(Your child's name) Construction Birthday Party - Hard Hats Needed!"

Go ahead and use yellow "caution" tape instead of streamers. It's a great idea to attach construction coloring poster to the wall as well. Pull out all the toy trucks or construction related toys (e.g. Lego Blocks) that you might have and decorate the party room with them.

Create an orange road by purchasing two plastic orange tablecloths, cutting them in half and taping them down on the floor. Use wide white tape to lay down solid and dashed lines on the road.

You can use construction theme party table cover and trucks and/or hard hats as construction birthday party table centerpiece.

Use construction vehicle mylar balloon to designate birthday child's chair at the table (Just tie the balloon to the back of the chair).

Remember to have lots of balloons and yellow streamers (if you don't have the "caution" tape) inside the house.

Hang some fun signs like "Attention! Fresh Construction Cake!" or "Construction Party Zone Ahead!", which you can make yourself with some construction paper and markers.

Greet your young construction birthday party guests and provide every one of them with a yellow hard hat.

*Hard Hat Decoration: For the first activity you can get the kids to decorate their hard hats with construction stickers while they are waiting for others to arrive.

*House painting: This is a great activity for young crowd. You can get a coloring house from a party store. Decorate the house with construction theme materials (stickers, yellow "caution" tape, etc.). Get the kids color the house with crayons.

*Construction Zones: Set up an outside construction zone for building and painting activities. Children will love being construction workers, truck drivers, road pavers, and painters.

For construction birthday party building materials you will need building blocks, toy trucks, and other sand toys. Place building materials in a sandbox or wading pool filled with slightly damp sand. Allow children to play at construction site at various times during the party.

For painting materials you'll need large empty boxes such as appliance boxes and wardrobe boxes, washable paints, paintbrushes, and several containers of water. Cut a door and a window in each door to make a house. Place paint, brushes, and water within kids' reach. Remind your construction birthday party guests to place used brushes in water when they're finished painting, and have wipes available for quick cleanup.

Have some fun with your construction party favors. You can give things like construction sticker sheets, flashing safety lights, inexpensive construction toy trucks, etc.

*Construction Site Obstacle Course: Prepare materials you have on hand to make an enjoyable and safe obstacle course for the kids. You can use two-by-four board to walk across, paint cans to walk around, sawhorses and plywood to crawl under, ladder or hoops to lay on the ground and jump through, sturdy boxes to climb over, etc.

First, you can demonstrate how to go through the obstacle course. Next, have the children take turns running the course. You can record individual or team times with a stopwatch and award prizes for the fastest time.

*Gumdrop Structures: You will need gumdrops and/or marshmallows (15 to 25 per child), toothpicks, 8"X11" pieces of cardboard or heavy card stock (1 per child), glue, and 2 bowls.

Place gumdrops and toothpicks into bowls. Demonstrate to younger construction birthday party guests how to poke toothpicks through gumdrops. Allow time for children to create house-like structures out of their construction materials. Glue each structure to a piece of cardboard for display.

*Nuts and Bolts: Tie one end of the string to a stick or dowel and tie the other end to a horseshoe magnet - this will be a "crane". Fill a large box with nuts and bolts, and place it on the ground outside. Put a sawhorse a few feet away from the box. Put a pan or bucket on the other side of the sawhorse.

Have each child, in turn, go up to the sawhorse and swing the "crane" into the nuts and bolts box, picking up as many as the magnet will hold. The child then swings the nuts and bolts over to the pan. A helper counts and records the number of items picked up and then returns them to the box. Award a prize to the child who collects the most items.

*Wheelbarrow Race: Play a traditional wheelbarrow game. Pair up the construction birthday party guests, have one child of each pair get on their hands and knees. Have the other child pick up the kneeling child's legs from behind (if children are having a difficult time, recommend they grab from the thighs). Next, have the children race to the finish line.

*Build a Town: Collect as many building toys (blocks, toy construction set, toy wood logs, etc.) as you can find.

*Build and Recycle: For this activity you will need various cardboard containers (e.g., paper tubes, sample-size cereal boxes), different colors and textures of decorating paper (e.g. stiffened felt, foam paper, construction paper, tissue paper, aluminum foil, etc).

Cut decorating paper into various shapes and sizes. Allow time for kids to construct various structures or construction vehicles using the available materials.

*Fill the Bucket: Break up the construction birthday party guests into two teams. Provide each team with a bucket or bowl of equal size. Have a pile of sand next to buckets. Give each player on both teams a spoon. Explain that the first team to fill their bucket with sand wins, but they may only use their spoons.

*Pin the Construction Hat on the Worker: Have a picture of a birthday child blown-up to poster size at your local quick-print shop. Cut out construction hat shapes from orange construction paper (half-circles work fine). Place tape or spray adhesive on the hats so they stick.

Hand each child a construction hat. Blindfold children one by one, spin them around, and tell them to stick the hat on the poster of the birthday child where it should be.

As an alternative, play Pin the Hat on Bob the Builder, or Pin the Hammer on Bob. You can use a poster of Bob the Builder instead of blowing up a poster of the birthday child.

*Red Light Green Light: Play Red Light Green Light with a construction twist. It's best to play this kids' outdoor game in an open area, but you can also play it indoors - if you have lots of space.

Before the game, draw two parallel chalk lines or lay two ropes a good distance apart on the play area. Make sure there is plenty of space for the kids to run around between the chalk lines or ropes (twenty feet is a good minimum distance). Choose one player to be the Police Officer and have him stand in from of one line. All the other players stand behind the opposite line.

The game starts with the Police Officer facing the other players. He turns his back to other players and yells, "Green light!" Then he counts to five out loud as quickly as he can. The other players must run or walk quickly toward the Police Officer while he counts. When the Police Officer has counted to five, he shouts, "Red Light!" and the players must freeze instantly.

The Police Officer whirls around to catch any players who are moving. Anyone who moves must return to the standing line. Play continues until one of the players crosses the line while the Police Officer's back is turned. That player then becomes the Police Officer.

*Construction Cake: Mix, bake, and cool the cake according to package directions. To make "dirt", finely crumble 6 Oreo cookies by placing them in a Ziploc plastic bag and rolling over the bag with a rolling pin. To make "grass", mix 1 tsp of water and a few drops of green food coloring in a plastic bag. Add shredded coconut and shake well. Add more food coloring or water as needed to achieve desired color. Spread the coconut on a paper towel to dry.

Frost the cake. Sprinkle "coconut grass" on the cake, leaving a chocolate road. Make a center divider with yellow decorating icing. Arrange small toy dump truck, bulldozer, cookie dirt, and jelly beans on cake as desired. (Wash toy trucks in very warm water using dish soap and a tablespoon of liquid bleach. Rinse well.) Place candles along the road to resemble streetlights. Write a special message on an index card and tape it to a craft stick. Insert this "billboard" in the grassy area.

I also recommend that you have a look at our dump truck cake page.

*Build-Your-Own Sandwiches: Cut all sandwich ingredients into small squares. Place each ingredient on a plate or in a bucket. Allow each construction birthday party guest to create two to three small sandwiches.

*Lumber pile fries: Cook French fries according to package directions. Stack potatoes in piles (as they wood stack logs in a lumber yard) on a metal or wooden tray. Keep warm in oven until ready to serve.

*Construction Worker's Brown Bag Lunch: This is an alternative to previous sandwich idea. Prepare a brown bag lunch for each guest, just like for real construction workers. One sandwich, bag of chips, apple and juice box with a straw makes a basic lunch. Use cookie cutters to turn the sandwiches into fun shapes.

*Lofty Wheels: Split English muffins in half and arrange on a cookie sheet. Spread thin layer of baked beans (from a 16-oz can) on top of muffin halves. Sprinkle shredded cheddar cheese (2 cups) on top of beans. Cut hotdogs into thirds, then cut each hotdog length-wise into four strips. Arrange 6 hotdog strips for wheel spokes on top of each muffin. Bake at 375°F for 10-12 minutes, or until cheese melts.

*Fruit Towers: Cut pineapple, melon, bananas, and apples into large cubes. Cut grapes in half. Mix 2 tbsp of orange juice concentrate with sweetened condensed milk in a small bowl to make a "cement" dip. Give each child several pieces of fruit and some dip. Have kids build fruit towers by dipping fruit pieces in the dip and stacking them on top of each other.

*Bob the Builder and Wendy's Tea and Biscuits: Serve tea and biscuits, just like Bob and Wendy do on Bob the Builder Show.

*Brownie Boulders: Prepare brownies according to recipe. Instead of cutting the brownies in equal rectangles, cut them in random messy shapes and serve them in the bed of a new toy dump truck, so the brownies look like boulders of dirt. To add "grass" to the dirt brownie boulders, dye shaved coconut with green food coloring, then sprinkle on the brownie boulders (just like in construction cake recipe).

*Gelatin Bricks: Make the Jigglers according to recipe on the back of several flavors of Jell-O gelatin. When firm, cut into rectangular shapes. Stack "bricks" on a serving plate to resemble a colorful brick wall.