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Party Planning -
Kid's Party Ideas -
Construction Zone Party Ideas
The key to pulling off a
coordinated event: Evoke your theme throughout the affair.
Whether that theme is as general as a season or a feeling, or as
specific as a special character, it should be the subtle thread
that ties everything together. Your location, invitations,
flowers, menu, cake, and favors should all cleverly reflect one
common concept. Then, get as creative as you can!
Setting
the Tone:
There's lots of
work to be done and a Construction Party will give your little builder
the perfect opportunity to show their skills. This party is sure to be
dynamite! Your party crews will begin their shift by receiving their own
Yellow Construction Hat
or
Pink Construction Hat
and tool kit
when they arrive on your construction site.
Ask all the little guests to come to the party dressed for some messy fun. Overalls, blue jeans, and flannel shirts are the order of the day.
Party Slogan:
After selecting this theme for your party, choose a slogan to use in your invitations, and to use in tying in decorations and personalized favors to your construction theme. Try one of the following, or brainstorm with the birthday boy to come up with the perfect slogan for your party:
- "Get ready for some Ground Breaking birthday fun with Evan!"
- "Jeremy’s Birthday Zone!
- "Max’s Bulldozing Bash!"
- "Caution: Kids partying at Cole’s birthday!"
Invitations:
About 2 weeks before your crew is
needed on your construction site send out
Construction Trucks Invitations
or
Bob Invitations , to let your young guests know what an earth moving good time they will have at the
party. And don't forget when the work is
done send out
Bob
the Builder Thank You Notes.
Address each envelope to "Foreman Williams" (each child's last name)"
As an alternative, purchase inexpensive
Yellow Construction Hats
or
Pink Construction Hats
for each party guest. Attach a computer-generated sticker with all the party details to the back of the hat. Hand deliver the invites, and ask guests to wear them to the party.
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The Decorations
Start by lining fences or the
party area with yellow "Caution: Men at Work" tape
available a local hardware store. Also haphazardly strung
it around chairs, across doorways, etc.
Attach a
bouquet of helium filled
balloons to a light post or mailbox so there will be no mistaking
where the fun will be that day!
Build a
balloon column for the
entryway, easy to do and makes a huge impact at little
expense.
A nail apron is a handy thing
for mom or dad to wear at the party, and can be used for wipes, a
camera, Kleenex, matches, birthday candles, etc.
Decorating your table:
The quickest way to set the
tone for your party is to start your decorating by
setting your table with themed
Construction Zone plates, cups, napkins,
table covers
& other accessories like: balloons,
streamers, curling ribbon, centerpieces, candles, and a
Truck Piņata to match your theme!
Turn well-washed
Yellow Construction Hats
or Pink Construction Hat
upside down, and use them as serving bowls for
dry snacks such as chips, pretzels, cheese balls or other
hearty fare.
Display your
construction
birthday cake
in the center of the table…the kids will love the close up
view!
Room Decorations:
Its Hammer Time! This
28" Inflatable Hammer is a great accent for your celebration.
Hang from the ceiling or place anywhere that strikes your fancy..
Pull out ladders, saw horses,
building materials and etc. from your garage to use for decorations;
anything you don't want played on/with just wrap in yellow "Caution" tape.
These
3"
construction vehicles are great for decorating. Place
on tables, use on your cake, or add them to your loot bags.
Make
a runner down the center of the table using 1" high boxes
filled with chocolate cookie crumb dirt, place
3"
construction vehicles
into
the dirt. Cover the sides of the box by gluing on small pebbles,
branches with leaves for trees & etc.
Balloons
can
economically transform any room or yard into a festive space in a
matter of minutes by using some of the following ideas:
- Use
lots of
balloons and crepe streamers for a really festive event. Visit
our balloon decorating page for ideas on how to hang balloons, make
columns & arches, balloon flowers & etc.
- Use a helium
tank to fill balloons. Tie
curling ribbon to
balloons, and group them together. (Odd numbers look best: 3, 5, or
7) Place groupings of balloons around the party site.
- Tie a bunch of helium filled
Balloons to the back of the birthday child's chair
or
tie one balloon to the back of each chair for a festive
touch.
Gray
solid color flat paper will go a long way in your decorating,
and you’ll have plenty left to use for games and activities.
Crumple paper up to make giant
boulders of varying sizes. Place the boulders all around your
construction site. The paper can also be laid on the ground to
create an asphalt road.
Add some special lighting
to create a realistic construction zone with a
8" Traffic Light
, which the birthday boy can enjoy in his room
long after the party ends.
Rent some road construction
signs w/lights that flash and tons of orange cones from a local
construction company and set them around your yard.
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Favors:
Personalize a construction apron
for each child (hardware stores have been known to give these out free
for the advertising) or use
Trucks Loot bags or
Bob The Builder Loot Bag
to get the job done and fill with
some terrific
construction favors.
Other fun favors might include:
Toys,
puzzles, small games, stickers, tattoos, pencils, crayons, & coloring books.
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The Games &
Activities:
A personalized
Giant
3-D Bulldozer and orange cones would be
the ultimate construction decoration, and the hub of all the
activity at a construction party! Our party planner have
purchased this item from
Shindigz.
- Take the
time to have each child pose alone, and with the birthday child for
pictures in the bulldozer. The priceless photos can then be
mailed to each guest with a thank you note at a later date.
- Make sure that each child gets a turn pulling the lever in the
cab…that’s what it’s all about for these big guys!
Create
an Asphalt Road
After the site is cleared, let
the kids create an asphalt road out of the
gray
solid color flat paper.
This can be as long or short as you want it to be.
Provide yellow poster paint, and let them paint the centerlines in
the road.
Construction Treasure
For a gloriously messy but fun
activity, arrange to have a truckload of sand, mulch or topsoil
dropped off during the party. Throw several inexpensive
3" Construction Trucks
and other
small toy treats into the dirt while
it is being dumped. The kids will love seeing a real dump
truck at work, and then they can dig for hidden treasures while they
play in the dirt.
Put out all the blocks, trucks
and bulldozers you have for kids to build and play with.
Let the kid's Free-build with construction block toys.
Musical Construction Hat
Play this game using the same
concept as the classic game of musical chairs…one less hat than
there are children for each round. Use a
traffic light
in place of music, and turn the light off and on as the children
play. Place
Yellow Construction Hats
on a table that
the kids must walk around while the light is flashing. When
the light is turned off, the kids must scramble to put on a hat. The
child without a hat must leave the game, and the game continues with
one less hat until there is one child remaining – the winner.
Build a House
Refrigerator Boxes, can be
"painted and decorate" by the kids to make a house. Cut
holes for door and windows and let the kids do the rest.
Construction Relay
Run a foreman training relay
between two teams or set up an obstacle course. You’ll need
two oversized orange construction vests or flannel shirts, two tool
belts, two pairs of oversized men’s work boots, two
Yellow Construction Hats, some
Orange
Cones to race through,
and massive boulders (gray Flat Paper) to avoid. You can make the
game more challenging by giving the teams wheelbarrows to run
through the course, or a toy dump truck filled with water or dirt.
Boulder Toss
Divide your little workers into
two equal teams in separate lines. Give the leader of each line
an inflated balloon. At the sound of go they must try to pass
the balloon in the air to the next person in line without it
ever touching the ground. When it reaches the end person have
them pass it back to the front. The first team to get it to the
front of the line wins.
Wheel Barrow Races
Divide your party guests into two
equal teams in two single file lines. Have the leader of each
line get on their hands and knees. At the start of go the player
behind them will grab his/her ankles and hold up their legs so
they can only walk on their hands. Race to a designated area and
have them reverse on the way back. Continue until one team
finishes first.
Pin the Hat
Play Pin the Hat on the
construction worker. Enlarge a coloring picture of a construction
worker, make some construction paper hard hats and let the game
begin.
Pinata Fun
When the project is complete,
celebrate by showering the kids with goodies from a wonderful
Truck Pinata
. Try using a lightweight hammer or
rubber mallet as the “bat”.
In the event that your little
construction engineers finish your activities faster than you
planned…don’t panic! Play some standard party favorites
such as:
- “Tool Time” (Hot Potato)
- Yield, Stop, Go” (Red
Light, Green Light)
- Limbo under the I-Beam
- “Bobcat, Bobcat,
Loader” (Duck, Duck, Goose.)
Backhoe Fun
Hire a local backhoe operator to
bring his backhoe to the party. This would be a great time for
the operator to show off his skills. My brother is a backhoe
operator and I have attended several backhoe competitions at
the companies that manufacture them. It is amazing what these guys can
do with a backhoe. They can pick up eggs and move them to a basket
without breaking one. They can do tricks with their backhoe. If you
find a good backhoe operator he can keep the kids entertained for a
good while. Give some of them a call or try calling a local Backhoe Dealer and ask them if they could give you some names of
operators that do competitions and would like to show off their
stuff for the kids.
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Food
& Cake Ideas:
Busy construction workers don’t have much time to stop for lunch, so pack them a
brown sack lunch that can be eaten high up in the girders of a new skyscraper! Add a sandwich,
(peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, small potato chip bags, an
apple and a juice box). Make sure none of the kids are allergic to
peanuts.
Serve sandwiches cut into shapes with
construction vehicle cookie cutters. Cut sugar cookies into
squares, diamonds, triangles and octagons, and frost them to look
like road signs.
Turn a
Yellow Construction Hat
upside down and it makes a terrific serving bowl for dry snacks or
fruit.
Make Brownies or Dirt Cake crumble them up
(to look like boulders of dirt) and served them from the bed of a new dump truck.
Put the tub of ice cream
inside a new bucket and served it with a shovel.
Carrot Hammers (use baby
carrots and stick a pretzel stick into it to form the handle)
Root Beer Floats (Days End
Brew)
Try this “Construction Zone Blast”,
and you’ll fill the room with “ooohs and aaahs”. Start
by serving red or blue punch. After you have placed a filled
glass in front of each guest, add some dynamite dust (a few Pop
Rockstm candies) to each one. Since this candy is
processed with carbon dioxide, it will crackle, pop, and spit when
it comes into contact with a liquid.
McDonald's has industrial
yellow coolers and will usually let you borrow them. A small deposit
may be required until they are returned.
Use sidewalk chalk to draw
blueprints on the driveway. Good way for kids to interact
together.
As the excitement is so high at
children’s birthday parties, most children under the age of 10
will eat very little, and the waste can be disheartening.
Schedule your party during a time when parents will not expect
that their children will eat a meal…and serve only cake, ice
cream, and a few other munchies.
Saw
Horse Sandwiches
Let the kids
construct their own sandwiches.
Hot dog buns
4 - stick pretzels for each sandwich
hot dogs
Condiments
Place pretzel sticks at an angle into the bottom of a hot dog bun (one on each
corner) to form a saw horse. Place these on a plate with a hot dog.
Use small plastic dump trucks to hold your sandwich condiments. The kids can drive these around the table to get their building supplies. Use larger dump trucks
or
Yellow Construction Hats
to hold chips and dips.
Serve a Dump Truck
Cake or Construction Cake
Dump Truck Cake!
All the party guests will know how much you care…after they consume this easy-to-make Dump Truck Cake!
WHAT
YOU’LL NEED:
- One
packaged chocolate cake mix
- Two 3 oz.
boxes of chocolate pudding prepared according to directions on
the box
- One box of
Oreotm Cookie Crumbs
- One
well-washed Tonka Dump Truck
- One 9 X
13” cake pan
- One yellow
shovel scoop
Prepare and bake the cake according to directions on the
package. After cake is completely cooled, cut it into
bite-sized pieces. Layer the bed of the dump truck with
cake, pudding, and crumbs. Continue to add layers until the
dump truck is piled high with “dirt.” Serve
heaping scoops of dirt with the shovel and enjoy the smiles
you’ll see!
If you are serving more people than can be accommodated by one
boxed mix, we recommend that you simply bake extra cupcakes, or an
extra rectangular cake. All can just be frosted in matching
frosting, and cut and served behind the scenes. You may want
to bake some white cupcakes with vanilla frosting, in the event
that some children don’t want the chocolate explosion!
Construction
Cake!
Start by baking a sheet cake. Use your child's
favorite cake and bake according to package
instructions.
Tint your frosting either green for grass or
brown for dirt. Crush vanilla wafers or
chocolate sandwich cookies to make dirt.
Sprinkle the cookie dirt on top of the cake.
Add a pile of dirt in the center of the cake
and place cone
candles on the dirt pile.
Use a spatula to form roads onto the top of
the cake, then place clean
3" Construction Trucks onto the cake. Large green gumdrops
can be stacked to form shrubs.
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Construction Decoration Links:
- For the area where most of the party
activity will take place, a personalized
Giant 3-D Bulldozer and Orange Cones by Shindigz is the ultimate construction
decoration! The bulldozer and crane really move. If the
party needs to move indoors, this cardboard and corrugated big rig
can easily be hauled to any party location.
- Place
Orange Cones by Shindigz around the perimeter of your
construction site, and rope off all the areas that might be
hazardous. Run
the streamers between trees, around porches, and anywhere else that
unauthorized personnel should avoid! The cones can also be
used for several party activities.
-
Giant Construction Tools by Shindigz can
hang on walls or outside the tool shed. Just imagine the size
of the nails, bolts, and lug nuts these tools could handle!
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