Choosing the party theme is a very important step when planning your kid's birthday party. This will give a guiding thread to the party. It will be used for the invitations, the decoration, the cake and party buffet, and of course the activities. This is also true for teenagers or adult parties by the way. In this blog post, I will give you some tips to choose it wisely.
Step one : make a list
Start with making a list of the themes that your child likes. Don't try to influence him for now. It's important to start with what he/she likes, because it's his/her party, and he/she also knows better what kids like at this age. He/she will probably list ideas linked to what he/she reads, to he/she watches on TV, but also to the games that he/she plays at school.
Step two : try to suggest other more classical themes to expand the choices
Try to suggest more classical themes that will unable you to find fun activities to do during the party. Just to help your child think of other fun ideas. For a young child, think of knights and princesses, pirates, the farm, the jungle, dinosaurs etc
For an older one, think of detectives, olympic games, spies, ancient Egypt, camping etc. These themes all work fantastically and are great fun for everyone.
Step three : expand the choices even more
You can brainstorm with the whole family to find other ideas for the birthday theme. Think of colors, places, toys, events, and write down all the ideas that come to your mind. You will see that many new ideas will come to you such as : a funfair party, a soccer party, a lego party, an upside down birthday party, a construction site party, a rainbow party, a circus party, a train party etc.
Step four : make choices
Now that you have written down a long list of birthday themes together, you will be able to make a choice. Start with discarding the ones that have been chosen by friends of your child before, or that are too complicated to organise for financial or logistical reasons. Then make a short-list of the themes that you like best and that should work well for that age and in the venue that you will use for the party. Choose the theme together and keep the other ideas for the coming years !
My advice
Have your child be fully implicated in the process and part of the final choice. You will have to take his opinion and his tastes into account while helping him realise that some choices cannot work well for the time being.
Be careful to choose a birthday theme that will work well for the age range of the kids that you are inviting. If you choose a theme that is not adapted it could compromise the full success of the party.
Try to choose a theme that will work for girls and boys if you are inviting both genders to the party. You can for instance choose a "pirates and mermaids" theme or a "princessses and knights" one.
List of themes by age group
To help you come up with your list of potential birthday themes, I am giving you hereunder a list of birthday themes by age group.
For the young ones (4 to 6 years old) : farm, dinosaurs, princesses, fairies, pirates, knights, legos, space, monsters, construction site, upside down birthday, the jungle, the funfair, superheroes.
For the middle ones (7 to 10 years old) : spies, detectives, wizards, ancient Egypt, horses, Halloween, Olympic games, desert island, countries of the world, soccer, training camp.
For the big ones (11 to 14 years old) : Harry Potter, neon party, camping party, spa party, movie party, escape room party, cooking competition.
If you want to organise a treasure hunt with the birthday theme that you have chosen, you can check my Etsy shop to download printable birthday games with detailed instructions and printable clues (pirates, detectives, ghost and witch party). You can also contact me on my e-mail if you're interested in my wizard treasure hunt party.
Don't hesitate to comment below with your suggestions, it could help other parents !
Thanks for reading 😊
