The right birthday party theme for your child is out there. You'll find the perfect fit for your little one's special day.
You know you want to throw your toddler a birthday party but you can't seem to come up with a fun theme. Take heart. Plenty of great ideas exist. In fact, the choices seem to never cease. Before you even have a theme, however, it's important to realize that parties for toddlers don't need to last more than an hour or two at the most. Kids that young have extremely short attention spans and become tired and irritable after too much stimulation. Plan for a short party and your responsibilities will be a lot less. As for the theme, base your decision on your child's likes, whether it be a sport, a television show or a favorite activity. Whatever you choose, your toddler will be sure to have an entertaining time.
Some themes serve as neutral choices that could be great for boys or girls or parties that will include both. Currently, the two most popular neutral themes for toddlers must be Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer. Any small child that lives in a house with television knows and loves these shows. Blue and Dora captivate young audience members every week, and those who have access to cable can even watch multiple episodes each day. So if your little one is like thousands of others, you can throw a party your toddler will love using either of these themes.
Let's start with Blue's Clues. Blue, her owner, Joe, and a host of other loveable characters should be well known to any parent of a toddler. And parents therefore are familiar with how each show works. Joe has a "puzzle" he must solve, which usually involves guessing something Blue would like to do or have, and he gets three clues to help him solve the puzzle. Blue and friends help guide Joe in the right direction until he finds the answer. When Joe discovers a clue, he records it by drawing a picture in his "handy dandy notebook". Joe needs kids' help to find the answers, so they have to keep up with the clues and learn how to problem solve themselves.
Center your party around riddles or puzzles your kids can try and solve. Hide clues in mailboxes or laundry baskets or drawers. Draw some blue paw prints to place on the location of the items. Hide them anywhere you want. Supply each child with a notebook and a crayon and have them draw their clues. Once they have three clues, see if any of them can guess the answer to your puzzle. When a child guesses correctly, have a small prize on hand to give to him or her. Repeat this activity as many times as you'd like. Toddlers will love getting involved and will feel so special that they get to participate in the same game Blue gets to play. And besides having a blast, your kids will be using their minds which will make the party both fun and educational at the same time.
Dora the Explorer is another extremely popular show that girls and boys tend to love equally as much. Quite similar to Blue's Clues in many ways, Dora and her companion, Boots, travel all over in search of some exciting treasure. Along the way, they meet new friends, face daring obstacles and sing fun songs. Dora also speaks Spanish, so you can always bet that she will teach a new word or two to your children. Once again, kids must use their minds to come up with answers to certain problems. And you may even find that soon your one to three year old will know more Spanish than you do.
If you can have your Dora-themed party outdoors, definitely try and do so. That way you can plan a treasure hunt of your own. Hide clues throughout your yard or in a park area and take the kids on a hike. Give them an easy-to-read map of the area and place "X's" where you have hidden clues. The toddlers can even work in teams if you have a lot of guests. You can fashion your own "obstacles" the kids must avoid in order to keep going. When each clue has been found, give a prize to everybody.
Most young kids only want other kids of their same sex to come to their birthday parties, at least until they get a few years older. If this is the case with your child, then fear not. Plenty of ideas abound for both boy and girl toddlers. For girls, Strawberry Shortcake (an eighties' favorite) has reemerged as a popular character. Everything from plates to napkins should be red, pink or white for this theme. Strawberry cake, cupcakes, and/or ice cream need to be the staples of your food selections. You'll probably want to have some vanilla ice cream or white cake with red icing on hand for those who haven't branched out to the strawberry flavor yet. While there really aren't any specific games to play for a Strawberry Shortcake theme, your little girls will probably be just as content to pretend they are Strawberry or to watch a couple of videos with their favorite personality.
Dress up or makeup parties score big with most little girls. Any party or costume store will have plenty of supplies in terms of cheap makeup and dresses, plastic jewelry and crowns or tiaras. Let the girls use heels the moms have provided. They will have an absolute blast pretending to be a mommy or a princess or whatever else they choose. And parents will get quite a kick at watching their babies try and act like adults.
Maybe the easiest birthday party themes for boys involve sports, cars, or some typically male role like policemen, fireman, soldiers and cowboys. Sports themes can highlight one sport in particular or you can create a theme using a variety of sports. Let your little boys engage in hitting plastic baseballs, shooting a miniature basketball, or even hitting plastic golf balls. They may still be a little small to perform many of the functions well, but as long as they are moving their bodies and they are actively involved, the boys will love simply running around.
The same holds true for boys who want to have a theme with cowboys or policemen or soldiers, or anything remotely similar. They will enjoy chasing each other and taking turns being the good guy and bad guy, no matter which theme they choose. If they like transportation machines like cars, trains, planes, bulldozers, or anything else, have plenty available that the boys can drive with their hands or race against each other on the ground. It's amazing how engrossed children can become in an activity that they love. If your son loves to move, which he more than likely does, all of the aforementioned themes would work really well.
The ideas presented in this article serve as only a small amount of the choices available. Some are timeless while some may not be applicable for the next generation's toddlers or even for toddlers five years from now. The options never end, however. Some other themes you could ponder include Sponge Bob Square Pants, Thomas the Tank, Hello Kitty, Sesame Street, or even some more generic selections like farm animals, underwater adventures, jungle safaris, and so on. You know your child better than anyone, so it should be pretty easy to come up with something he or she will like. The right theme for your child is out there. You'll find the perfect fit for your little one's special day.
