Pizza Party

Create a great pizza theme party for your child’s birthday. Use these ideas for pizza  themed party invitations, decorations, food, games and prizes.

A Pizza Party is a great idea for your teenager, or pre-teen, who thinks they are too old for a traditional birthday party. You can make it as simple or as elaborate as you like, depending on how old your child is and what still rates as ‘cool’ in their mind. If you want to keep it simple, you can order in pizza and throw on a few good movies, but if you want to go all out, here are some great ideas to get you started.

Pizza Party Invitation Ideas

• Cut a circle out of coloured card, and turn one side of it into a pizza (by drawing on all the toppings with felt pens). Write the party details on the back, then cut the pizza up into slices, before putting them in an envelope to send. When your guests receive their invitations, they’ll have to put the pizza back together to find out what it’s all about.
• Make up an invitation inviting your guests to the grand opening of your Pizza Parlour. If you like, you could also add an Admit One ticket with all the party details.
• Buy some small pizza boxes (available from craft stores and packaging outlets), and decorate them in your very own ‘Pizza Parlour’ design. If you can, include all the party details in the design, or write them on the underside of the lid.

Pizza Party Decorations

There are two ways you can go with a Pizza Party theme – either decorate the party room to look like a pizzeria, or go all out and dress it up with everything Italian. Whichever you choose, make sure you have plenty of red and white chequered table cloths and Italian music playing in the background.

Obstacle Course

Give all the kids an empty pizza box, and ask them to carry it on one hand through an obstacle course. If they drop the box, they need to pick it up and run back to the start. To make it even more fun, get them to put on a chef’s hat, an apron, and a fake moustache before they start. The person who gets through the course in the fastest time wins!

Balloons

Give everyone a different coloured balloon to blow up, but ask them to hold on to the neck rather than tie it in a knot. Place an open pizza box in the middle of the floor, and on the count of three, have everyone let go of their balloons. Whoever’s balloon lands the closest to the box gets 10 points, the second closest gets 5 points, and if anyone’s lands in the box, they get 25. After four or five rounds, the person with the most points wins.

Twister

Use an old tarpaulin to make a giant pizza themed twister mat. Simply choose four different pizza toppings (salami, tomato, cheese, onion, pineapple, mushroom…) and draw them randomly all over the tarpaulin.

On a chart, allocate a number between 1 and 4 to each topping and each body part (right hand, left hand, right foot, left foot) . Roll the dice for one guest at a time, and tell them what they need to do. For example if you throw a 1 and a 3, they would need to put the number 1 body part onto the number 3 topping. If you throw a 5 or 6, either throw again or let your guest have a free choice.

The game gets funnier and funnier as people have to stretch and twist to get themselves into the right place. If anyone falls down they are taken out of the game, and you continue until there is only one person left on the pizza.

Chef’s Clothes

Give each child an apron or a chef’s hat and let them decorate it with fabric paint. There are some great brands of fabric paint available from craft stores, which simply air dry or heat set with an iron or hair dryer. Fabric paints come in all sorts of colours and cost approximately $4 per tube.

Pizza Party Food

Food for a Pizza Party is obviously pizzas, but there are several ways you can dish it up:

• Make your own pizza from scratch, including the base.
• Make your own pizza on a store-bought base.
• Have the children create their own pizzas on store-bought bases.
• Heat up store-bought frozen pizzas.
• Have a pizza parlour deliver pizza to your door.
• Go out to a pizza parlour once all the games and activities have finished.

For great dough recipes, topping suggestions, and few out-of-the-ordinary ideas, check out the ‘Pizzas’ article in our Birthday Food section. Don’t forget to make a dessert pizza to round off the meal (excuse the pun!).

Pizza Party Costumes

Pizza parties are usually for older children, and by then they are often over the idea of dressing up. However, you could add some magic to the party by dressing up as an Italian chef, complete with chequered pants, a chef’s hat, an apron, a red bandana around the neck, and a fake moustache.

Pizza Party Prizes and Loot Bag

Teenage children generally don’t expect a loot bag at a party, but there are plenty of pizza themed prizes available if you choose to go that way. You can find magnets, jelly pizza sweets, key rings, and stickers for just a few dollars, or let them be all grown up with a pizza recipe book, a pizza slice, or a discount voucher for your local pizza parlour. A small pizza box or an empty chef’s hat makes a great loot bag.