Luau Birthday Party Ideas - Hawaiian Party Theme

Your child's birthday party won't be complete without using some creative Hawaiian luau birthday party ideas.

Take the kids to the tropics with Hawaiian luau party - right in your own backyard! Slap on the suntan lotion and grab the sunglasses - it's time for some fun in the sun!

Resources:

For luau party invitations, cut out a large starfish, shell, palm tree or sandcastle from colored cardboard. Write details of place, time and date on the back. Tell guests to wear their brightest beach wear. If you can hand deliver the invitations, place a torn piece of paper with all the luau birthday party details inside a small bottle or fill a fabric bag with sand and party details. Drop one off at each guest's house.

You can use vacation postcards featuring a South Pacific beach. Write, "Wish You Were Here!" on the photo side of the postcard - then write the luau birthday party details on the back.

For another variation, create your own airline tickets, good for a free trip to your tropical paradise. Write your party details on the ticket to read as destination, time of departure and arrival, and other luau birthday party information.

You can also create a brochure, writing the party information as an advertisement for a tropical paradise.

Buy some coconuts at the grocery store and write luau birthday party details right on them with a black felt-tip pen. For fun, make a funny face on the coconut first. Hand deliver or mail your invitations to the guests.

Turn your yard into a tropical paradise with crepe paper streamers, big posters of colorful fish and marine life, and other luau party decorations of your choice. Borrow some large sun umbrellas and have them set up before the kids arrive. Attach a few balloons to the tops of umbrellas. Light tiki torches or string up colored lights if the luau birthday party is at night.

Make a sandbox and fill it with sand toys. Fill a kiddy pool with water. Cut out palm trees and a sun from large sheets of construction paper - tack them to the fence and decorate the walls.

Hang up posters of tropical islands. Drape fishnets over the fence and the luau birthday party table to create a tropical look. Hang tiny shell necklaces around the yard.

Decorate the table with postcards of various beaches. Scatter some shells on the table or have food in those large (shop bought) shells. Fill luau birthday party area with large paper flowers and lots of tropical fruit, such as coconuts, bananas, papayas, and pineapples. Hang plastic fish from the fence or the trees. Place extra fish on the table, personalized with each guest's name.

If you're having luau birthday party inside the house, bring all your plants into one room to create a tropical look. If it's wintertime, turn up the thermostat and encourage the guests to wear summer play clothes or even swimsuits. Hang Hawaiian shirt or palm tree mylar balloons with paper streamers in your party room. Borrow a surfboard, if you can - it makes a great prop.

Greet your luau birthday party guests and provide them with coconut cups, straw hats, leis and sunglasses. Children can keep those as Hawaiian luau party favors.

*Coconut Decoration: You can use coconut cups for this activity, but I suggest real coconuts. Let the kids make funny faces out of the coconuts.

Point out the two dark circles that form the coconut "eyes". Next, give children puffy paints, regular paints, or felt-tip pens to create crazy coconut heads. Have awards for the funniest, craziest, scariest "coconut face".

*Hawaiian Luau Candy Leis: Make Luau candy leis by letting the kids string together colorful Life Saver candies to form necklaces.

*Hula Hoop Fun: Teach the hula and put on a show! Encourage kids to keep swinging the hula hoop in the air as long as they can. Younger kids may have some trouble keeping the hoop in the air for any length of time. So have them jump though the hoops instead.

Send the kids home from their Hawaiian vacation with luau party favors: sand toys, sunglasses, and beach towels. Give the kids grass skirts and hula hoops.

*Limbo: Have a Limbo Contest and see how low they can go. Hold a broomstick or bamboo stick four feet above the ground and have the players try to duck under it by bending backwards. Play some Hawaiian music during this contest. After everyone has had a turn going under the stick, lower it half a foot and go again. Keep playing until only one player remains.

*Slippery Slide: Lay the plastic material on the lawn. You can also use several large plastic garbage bags, cut open and taped together at the ends with plastic tape. Secure the corners with tent pegs pounded into the ground so the corners won't stick up. Place the hose nozzle on the "spray" setting and put it at one end of the plastic so that the water runs down the plastic. Then run and slip and slide.

*Musical Pools: Set large pans of water in a circle, enough for all but one player. Play some Hawaiian music as the kids, in bathing suits, march around the pools of water. When you stop playing the music, the kids must scramble for a pool and sit down. The player who does not find a pool is out of the game. Remove one pan of water and continue playing until only one player remains.

*Water Balloon Toss: Prepare water balloons before luau birthday party. Have about 4 water balloons per each guest. Divide the kids into pairs. Have the partners toss water balloons back and forth. For added fun, put shaving cream on the balloons to make it more challenging to catch. Kids will love being splashed all over with water!

*Ocean Wave Bottle: Prepare a 32-oz plastic soda bottle by washing it, removing labels, and drying the outside. Using a funnel, pour 1/2 cup water into a bottle, then add 1/2 cup of cooking oil and 1/2 cup vinegar. Have the kids watch to see what happens as you add different liquids.

Add several drops of blue food coloring, then add glitter, sequins, and plastic confetti. Close the cap and seal it shut with rubber cement. Tell the kids to shake the bottles to make the waves, or swirl them around to create a tornado effect.

As a variation, you can fill the bottle just with water. Connect two bottles together using the Tornado Tubes (available from toy, hobby, and school supply stores). Watch the water funnel down from the top bottle to the bottom bottle when they are held upright and swirled gently in a circle.

*Water Weenie: Buy rubber tubing at the hardware store. Tie off the end. Insert the top half of the ballpoint pen into the other end and tape it securely with electrical tape. Fill the tube slowly with water using a narrow nozzle, by inserting the end with the ballpoint pen into the water, and watch the tubing expand.

Remove the nozzle when the tubing is filled and block the pen opening with your finger. Then aim and shoot and see how far you can make the stream go. Remember to let the kids know not to shoot anyone in the face.

*Erupting Volcano: This luau birthday party game provides the most of fun and the least mess - when created outdoors.

First, make the "cone" of the volcano. Mix 6 cups flour, 2 cups salt, 4 tbsp cooking oil, and 2 cups of water. The resulting mixture should be smooth and firm (more water may be added if needed). Stand an empty plastic soda bottle in the baking pan and mold the dough around it into a volcano shape. Don't cover the hole or drop dough into it!

Fill the bottle most of the way full with warm water and a bit of red food coloring. Add 6 drops of dishwashing detergent to the bottle contents. Add 2 tbsp of baking soda to the liquid. Slowly pour vinegar into the bottle. Watch out - eruption time!

*Attach of the Flying Sponges: Collect a bunch of inexpensive sponges - the larger the better - in a variety of colors for added fun. Set out buckets of water on either side of the lawn or play area, or if possible, give a bucket of water to each player. Toss the sponges inside the buckets to get them wet.

On the word "Go!" the kids grab a sponge from the bucket and chase each other around the lawn, trying to hit other players with the wet sponges. Warn the kids not to throw the sponges at anyone's face. Supervise this activity for added safety.

Luau Party

*Surf's Up: Borrow a surfboard and set it on the ground. Have one player set up on it while the rest of the players sit around the board and move it in an effort to rock him or her off.

*Shooting Gallery: Line up plastic bottles, cups, or boxes along a table or fence. The players, holding squirt guns should stand a distance from the line. On the word "Go!" the players shoot at the targets with their squirt guns.

*Shark Alert: Have the kids dressed for getting wet. Choose one person to be the shark. Arrange everyone else in a big circle around the shark. Have the people in the circle toss a water balloon back and forth, trying to keep it away from the shark.

*Beach Volleyball: This luau birthday party game is for kids over 8 years of age. Set up volleyball net or rope in the backyard and divide the players into two teams. Instead of using a volleyball, have the kids play the game with a large beach ball.

*Hula-Do: Choose someone to be Hula Simon. Line the guests up in a row and have them respond to orders from Hula Simon, but only when he or she says "Hula-Do." Have all the commands relate to the hula dance. Be sure to make up your own wacky steps.

*Island Hopping: Cut out "islands" from brown construction paper. Make each island about two feet in diameter. Place the islands within stepping distance of one another around the yard, but make each one a stretch.

Have the players take turns trying to Island Hop from one island to another, without falling into the ocean to be devoured by sharks. Time the kids to make it exciting, or have a race between two teams.

*Tropical Sand Storm: Give each luau birthday party guest a small jar, such as a clean baby food jar. Set bowls of fine sand on the table and provide large sticks of sidewalk chalk. Have the kids color the sand by rubbing the chalk over the sand grains in the bowls until they are tinted. Then let them fill their jars with layers of colored sand. Fill the jars to the top. Seal them shut with glue, and paint the lids.

*Luau Cake: First, bake a rectangular cake. Next, cover half the cake with white frosting tinted blue, to look like the sea. Third, cover the other half of the cake with white frosting and sprinkle brown sugar on top to look like sand. Next, set Hawaiian toy dancers on the sand and have a tiny shark coming up out of the ocean. Use candles as Tiki torches.

*Pineapple Upside-Down Cake: Mix cake according to directions. Layer pineapple slices in bottom of sheet cake pan, fill holes with maraschino cherries, and pour in the liquid of canned pineapples. Pour in cake batter and bake according to package directions. When done, flip cake over onto platter - pineapple side up. Top with tiny paper umbrellas for decorations.

For more ideas, have a look at this spectacular Hawaiian hula girl cake.

*Kid Kebabs: skew cubes of ham, cheese, pineapple, and cherries on wooden skewers.
*Fruit Salad
*Fruit Kebabs
*Hawaiian Pizza
*Bananas dipped in marshmallow and coconut
*Pineapple wedges on toothpicks with cherries on top
*Scooped out oranges filled with sherbet
*Green Pasta
*Shrimp or Tuna Salad
*Grilled Salmon

*Pineapple Boats: Slice a pineapple in half lengthwise, removing the pineapple inside. Next, refill with pineapple chunks, cherries, raisins, and coconut.

*Giant Banana Boat: Peel 6 bananas and cut them into chunks. Put half of the banana chunks in a glass bowl. Put scoops of vanilla ice cream on top of bananas. Squeeze fudge topping or chocolate syrup over ice cream. Top with remaining banana chunks.

Add more scoops of chocolate and/or strawberry ice cream. Use a spoon to drizzle strawberry, caramel, and/or pineapple topping over ice cream. Next, squirt whipped topping on top. Sprinkle with nut topping and add cherries.

*Sunset Punch: Mix 5 1/2 cups each orange juice, pineapple juice, and peach nectar. Serve to your luau birthday party guests with crushed ice and a peach slice on the edge of the glass. For Sunrise Punch variation, use instead 2 quarts each of orange juice and soda water.

Hawaiian Luau Birthday Party Ideas