A guide to creating an animal theme birthday party for your child. Ideas for animal themed party invitations, decorations, food, games, costumes and prizes.

Animal Antics is a great party for younger children, and both boys and girls will be equally impressed. Giddy-up – let’s get this party started.

Animal Theme Invitation Ideas

• Cut out lots of different animal shapes and on each one write a different part of the invitation. For example: Cut out an elephant from grey card, and write on it – Where: 23 Farmyard Road. Put all your animals into a video sized postage box, (available from all post shops), and colour it to look like an animal transport crate. When your guests receive their invitations, they’ll have to put the whole zoo together to find out what’s happening.
• Cut your card into the shape of Noah’s Ark, with a flap on the front for the door. When your guest lifts up the flap, all the party details will be underneath.
• Use the words to ‘Old McDonald’, and change them around to tell details of your child’s party. “Old McDonald had a farm EIEIO. And on that farm he had a party EIEIO. With a 2 o’clock start, and 4 o’clock end, here a game, there a game, every where some game games…….and on it goes.

Animal Theme Decorations

• Use black insulation tape to create ‘bars’ on all your windows. You can have your party inside a cage at the zoo.
• Beg, borrow or steal (just kidding!) as many soft toys as you can, and jam pack your house with them all. You get to have all the animals you want without any of the mess!
• Turn your house into a barnyard by setting up hay bales, fence post standards, tractor wheels, and even fake cow poo!

Animal Theme Games and Activities

• Older kids will enjoy making balloon animals. You can purchase long trick balloons from most party supply shops, and instructions for basic animals are on the back of the packet. For more advanced balloon animals hunt out some books at your local library.
• Encourage all your guests to bring along their pet (or pets!) and create a good old fashioned pet day.
• Give every child a selection of plastic animals from all over the world, (the wilder the better). Lay a giant map on the floor and ask them to put the animals in the country they come from. There may be more than one answer for any given animal, but how you make the rules is up to you.
• Let every child make a monarch butterfly sun catcher for their bedroom window. Start by folding a piece of black card in half, and cutting out the shape of butterfly wings. Snip snowflake designs into each wing, and lay a piece of orange cellophane over the back. Tape the cellophane into place, and hey presto – a monarch butterfly.
• Have your guests make their own Noah’s Ark using twigs, leaves, corks and string. Float them all in a big barrel or baby’s bath, and see whose ‘ark’ can hold the most plastic animals before it sinks.
• Before the party, make some animal finger puppets by gluing pictures of animals onto card, and attaching a cardboard loop to the back. There are plenty of pictures on the internet you can download, or colour copy some from children’s books or magazines.
• When each child arrives, give them a finger puppet to get them started. Tell them you have hidden a whole family of animal puppets, and they should keep an eye out for them during the party. Make enough puppets so that every child can create a family of 5 on their hand.Tip: Make a note of where you have hidden all the puppets, as there’s bound to be one or two children who need some help at the end.

Animal Theme Party Food

• Make zebra club sandwiches by layering white bread with either nutella or marmite. Black, white, black, white, black white…..
• Make blue lemonade jelly with chocolate fish swimming inside. You could either make a giant ocean for everyone to share, or set the jellies in individual mounds with one chocolate fish in each.
• Poke 8 candy fruit sticks into the sides of a mallowpuff to make ‘legs’. Use icing or melted chocolate to stick red pebbles to the top, and voila – you have ferocious chocolate spiders!
• Ice cupcakes to make a family of animals. Chocolate icing with chocolate hail for bears, white icing with white marshmallows for fluffy lambs, pink icing with coconut for bunnies. If you use your imagination you could make a different cupcake for every child.
• Easy peasy stand bys – animal biscuits, barnyard feed (scroggin), sour snake lollies, Freddo frogs and tiny teddy biscuits.

Animal Theme Costumes

You don’t have to dress as an animal for an animal party. You could dress up as a farmer in a checked shirt, denim overalls, gumboots and a hat, or a zoo keeper in khaki’s and camouflage pants.

Quick and easy animal costumes can be made by simply dressing your child in the colour of the chosen animal, and adding the necessary ears, tail and accents. For example, you can make a tiger costume by taking an orange T-shirt and track pants, then adding black stripes with fabric paint (or insulation tape if you want to be able to remove them). Cut some pointy ears out of stiff card and attach them to a headband, then stuff a stocking for the tiger’s tail. Paint their face and you’re done.

A lady bird can be made from a red tracksuit painted with black dots, and some net curtain wings. A lion can be made from a yellow or brown tracksuit, with wool stitched around the neck and shoulders for a mane. If you start with a simple idea you can keep adding things until you’re happy it’s done.

Animal Theme Prizes and Loot Bags

• Put your animal themed treats into a small cardboard postage box, and decorate it to look like an animal carry cage or a cage at the zoo.
• Buy some cheap plastic boats from an emporium type store and make them into your own Noah’s Ark. Fill them with animals of all varieties…plastic, candy, wooden…
• Look for cheap animal themed prizes like gummy bears, stickers, stamps, rubbers and magnets. You can purchase cute animal ornaments from emporium type stores for just a few dollars.