Zoo Birthday Party Ideas

Kids will like an idea of attending a zoo birthday party because of a chance to be lions, tigers, bears, and other wild animals.

Invite them over for some animal-antics, and see if you can tame them before feeding time!

Resources:

Invitations

Welcome your guests to your homemade zoo with zoo party invitations.

Photocopy a picture of the birthday child. Cut out cards from black construction paper and fold them in half. On the outside of the card, cut out bars to make a cage. Place the birthday child's picture on the inside of the card, so he or she appears to be inside the cage when the card is closed.

Write the party details in white ink. You can write "Calling all Party Animals! You're invited to (your child's name) Zoo Birthday Party! We'll decorate and play some games too! So join us for some punch and cake, we'll make an Animal out of you!"

As a variation, you can make your birthday party invitations to look like zoo tickets. On top of your invites write "Admit One to (your last name) Zoo". On the inside of the invitations put a picture of the birthday child in animal costume. Finally, write the zoo birthday party details on the opposite page.

Decorations

Place a banner on you fence that says "Welcome to (your last name) Zoo". Decorate your backyard with blowup animals and animal standees. Fill the entire area with animal Mylar balloons. You can also turn regular latex balloons into "animals" - by drawing animal faces on them with permanent black markers.

Make the party area to look like a zoo with cages cut from large cardboard appliance boxes. Paint the boxes with poster paints, cut out the fronts to look like cages, and cut back openings for the "animals" to enter. Label each cage with the name of the animal.

Decorate the party room with stuffed animal toys. (You can ask the guests to bring extra stuffed toys to the party.) Hang animal posters on the walls. You can design various signs like they have at the zoo. For example, you can make a sign that says "Please Don't Feed Animals" and then cross out the word "Don't."

Cover your zoo birthday party table with regular white tablecloth. Then use zebra or leopard stamp to make a border with respective prints. Place stuffed animal toy for table centerpiece. Tie colorful balloons to the backs of the chairs.

When the ties are stuffed, glue them closed using a glue-gun or sew them up. Glue on buttons or pom-poms for eyes or use puffy paints. Then glue or sew on red felt tongues.

Favors

Give the kids plastic animals to enjoy at home. Hand out posters featuring various creatures and books about animals.

Your other zoo birthday party favors can include animal bean bags, stickers, candy necklaces, crayons, and so on.

Zoo Birthday Party Games

*Animal Noises: Write the names of animals or draw animal pictures on individual cards. Some examples include tigers, lions, bears, and so on.

Pass the cards to the kids as they sit in a circle. Get them to make a sound representing the animal on their card. Have the other group members try to guess the animal.

*Pull My Tail: Stick cloth or paper animal tails onto the backs of each player with tape. Have the kids try to collect as many tails as they can from one another, while trying to keep their own tails. Whoever collects the most tails wins a prize.

*Elephant Peanut Hunt: Before the zoo birthday party, hide peanuts throughout your house or yard. At game time, get the kids to transform into elephants and have them find their meal. Give each child a sack and reward all the "elephants" with small prizes.

*Zoo Trip: Write names of various zoo animals on pieces of paper and put them in a hat or a bowl. Split your guests into two groups. Members of first group draw an animal out of the hat. (You should have several animals.)

Next, they can prepare to act out their animals being inside "cages" (see decorations). If you can, have children wear some costumes or accessories for added fun.

Members of the second group can take imaginary walk around the "zoo area" spotting the animals. Get them to stop at each "cage" and guess what kind of "animal" they are looking at.

*Hungry Lions: Here is a great outdoor game for your zoo party. Pick one or two players to be lions. All the other kids are antelopes.

The game starts by one of the adults shouting "Feeding Time!" The lions must chase and try to catch the antelopes. Those who are caught must stand still and straddle their legs. To be freed, one of the other antelopes must crawl between their legs.

You can continue playing the game until everyone has been caught or the kids are too tired to play.

*Animal Trivia: Play a trivia game testing kids' knowledge of various animals. You can design your game similar to Jeopardy with categories, questions valued at various amounts, the person with fastest response getting the right to answer, etc. Prepare your questions and answers from an encyclopedia.

For a slight variation, give children time to write answers on pieces of paper. At the end of the game, you can read out answers to see who got the most correct ones.

*Kangaroo Bounce: Split your zoo party group into two teams. Attach paper bags around kids' waists with a yarn. Have them hop across the party area around a chair and back in a relay race. You can put a stuffed toy or other items in their pouches to carry and transfer to the next player on their team.

*Giraffe Stretch: Hang doughnuts from an outstretched bar or a furniture fixture. Get the kids to bite on and eat doughnuts like giraffes without using their hands. (The doughnuts should hang low enough for children to bite on them.)

*Feed the Seal: Get your zoo birthday party guests toss bean bags into a bucket from a few feet away.

To make the game more realistic, you can draw a large picture of a seal (or any other animal). Then cut out the mouth, and have the players try to toss their bean bags inside the animal's mouth.

*Animal Charades: Give each guest a turn to act out an animal for the other players to guess.

*National Geographic: If time permits, have children watch National Geographic (or similar show) to unwind at the end of the zoo birthday party.

Zoo Birthday Cakes:

*Zoo Cake: Bake a rectangular cake. Next, frost it with chocolate frosting. Sprinkle the cake with brown sugar to look like dirt.

Set small plastic animals on the cake. Let each zoo birthday party guest have an animal to take home!

*Tiger Cake: Bake one 9" round cake and two cupcakes. Arrange cupcakes and cake on a platter so the round cake is the "face" and cupcakes - the "ears" of a tiger. Frost all cakes with orange frosting.

Have a tube of chocolate decorator's icing. Zigzag the icing on the "tiger's face" for stripes. Decorate the "face": 2 green hard candies for eyes, assorted chocolate and jelly beans for nose and mouth, and black licorice for whiskers.

Zoo Birthday Party Food Ideas:

*Animal Face Pizzas: Split muffins in half and spread them with pizza sauce. Provide pepperoni, sliced olives, mushrooms, shredded mozzarella cheese, etc. Let the zoo birthday party goers make individual pizza faces using various toppings.

*Pigs in Blanket: Get fresh croissants (miniature if available) or bake frozen ones until golden brown. Slice croissants in half and spread cream cheese inside. Finally, fill the croissants with hotdogs.

*Animal Sandwiches: Prepare and cut sandwiches into animal shapes with cookie cutters.

*Potato Salad
*Chips & Dip
*Peanuts
*Cotton Candy
*Popcorn
*Ice Cream

Zoo Birthday Party Drink Ideas:

*Root Bear Floats: Fill guests' glasses half full with root bear. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and carefully pour more root beer. Serve with long-handled spoons.

*Ginger Ale
*Orange-Flavored Soda