MENU

Decorate-Your-Own Cupcakes. Provide bowls of variously tinted icings, small dishes of colored sugar sprinkles, and small spreading knives. Older children can try writing their names on the cupcakes. See Decorator's Icing.

Ice cream

Tinted milk. Let each child put a few drops of food coloring in his or her cup (clear plastic cups are best for this). Let the children experiment to make different colors: orange from red and yellow, green from blue and yellow, and so on.

DECORATIONS

Cover the table with newspaper and place bowls of icing and sprinkles in the center.

FAVORS, PRIZES, ITEMS FOR TREAT BAGS

Crayons, nontoxic markers, paint sets, stickers, pipe cleaners, paper, tape, paste, clay

INSIDE ACTIVITIES, NONCOMPETITIVE

1. Make a mural together for the birthday child. Roll white shelf paper out on the floor. Each child decorates a section of it and signs his or her name and the date. Display when the mural is finished.

2. Make decorations and decorate the party room at the party.

3. If art supplies are favors, let the children open them up and use them at the party.

4. Art Contest. Have everyone draw a picture. Award everyone a prize for being distinct in a certain way: most realistic, most abstract, best design, funniest, prettiest, weirdest, scariest, most interesting, and so on.

OUTSIDE GAMES AND ACTIVITIES, NONCOMPETITIVE

1. Find rocks and paint them with acrylic paints to make paperweights.

2. Treasure Hunt. At the end of the hunt, the treasure box contains art supplies for everyone to share and use at the party.

OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES, COMPETITIVE

Draw-a-Face Relay Race. Each team member has to run to a chair or line, pick up a pad, draw a face, sign his or her name, drop the pad on the chair or line, and run back to tap the next player on his or her team to go. Each player draws on a different page. The first team to finish wins.