Finally- an inexpensive Angry Birds slingshot birthday party game that you don’t have to be a carpenter to construct. Thanks to geek mom.com for this one and for creative use of foam board.

This construction uses 20″x 10″ and 10″ x 10″ pieces of foam board; the larger ones partially cut in half and ‘folded’ to make the ‘V’ shapes you see. These are then topped with a 10′ x10″ piece. One standard 20″ x 30″ piece of foam board will make either 3 of the ‘V’ shapes or 6 of the squares, so purchase enough pieces for your sized tower.

You need either parent helpers ready to set up and re-build every time the game is played, or kids old enough to do it.  If kids, one team shoots, the other rebuilds.

Where to get your piglets and your Angry Birds? If you sew and are so inclined, here’s terrific instructions for the plush pigs and a blue bird. You’ll obviously have your take-home party favors if you choose to make these piglets. Otherwise, you can purchase plush Angry Birds on Amazon and just use bright green paper plates with a drawn on piglet face as the targets. The kids can either throw the plush Angry Birds or launch them from an exercise band slingshot with the two ends held by adults. Or, paint some old tennis balls the requisite Angry Bird colors, draw on beaks and eyebrows and use those in the slingshot.

However this silly game is played, it’s fun and it makes a marvelous birthday party game for your Angry Birds party. Enjoy!

Short of launching your party guests in a giant slingshot, an Angry Birds themed dodge ball birthday party game is the next best thing. Problem is, inexpensive lightweight playground balls aren’t so easy to find. One parent was lucky to find red and green ones at her grocery store, so start your search there.

There is an alternative and that’s to use red and green balloons. Don’t blow them up past about 6″ in diameter, and weight them with beans or rice. Experiment on your own dodge ball field to get the right weighting for the distances your party kids will be throwing.

Follow these directions for making your Angry Bird balls or balloons. You’ll need primer, acrylic paints and brushes, a sealer, a dry erase marker  and black paint pens- all available at your local craft store. Use these templates for your Angry Birds and no artistic talent is required.

Clearly, dodge ball works best outdoors. Lay out your playing field with garden hose or rope (clothesline), and include a center line that neither team can cross. Once all properly sized for your available space and number of kids, use washable spray paint to draw the lines on your grass. [Krylon makes a line marking paint- check your local sporting goods store].

To play, divide the kids into 2 teams, one on each half of the field, and distribute those Angry Bird balls to one team. The other team will be the piglets- targets. Any piglet that gets hit by an Angry Bird is out. Time how long it takes the Angry Birds to eliminate all the piglets. Then, switch the teams around for revenge! You can complicate the game by putting up a few barriers on the piglet side of the field. This also makes the game more like the actual video game. Here’s a shout out to angrybirdspartysuppliet.net for this game idea!

This Angry Birds version of a dodge ball birthday party game will run some energy off your party guests. Remember, you can always move the kids outdoors so long as it’s not totally frigid or precipitating, with jackets as necessary, for even just one active game. Then bring them back inside for your remaining indoor birthday party games.

Funny Bones is a very silly birthday party game that will have them pretzeling and laughing and having fun. Works with most any age (including adults) if they can follow instructions. No need to go out and buy that game of Twister.

Pair the kids up in two’s – even  make a game out of creating the pairs. Write one body part on each of two little pieces of paper, one paper for each child, and have them draw the papers out of a hat and keep the information to themselves. Then you as host(ess) call out various body parts, including many that you didn’t include in the drawing. The two with the same body part become a pair. Continue until everybody’s paired up.

Now, you call out two body parts, for example knee and ear, and each pair has to figure out how to put those two body parts in contact. Once everybody’s gotten it, call out two more body parts, except this time the kids need to try to keep all 4 body part in contact- if possible. Keep going until it becomes impossible, then start them over. You might want to orchestrate this ahead of time so it’s actually possible to go more than 2 rounds, For example- shoulder and elbow, followed by finger and nose, followed by wrist and knee, followed by foot and thigh…

It’s probably best to play this kids birthday party game on a softer surface like a rug rather than concrete as they will be falling down, laughing and having a good old time.

A dance party is a great theme for preteens and that first boy-girl party, but you do need some back up birthday party games to keep things moving and under your control (as opposed to under their control). And I found some help with dance party game ideas on the website dance.net. Thanks!!

Dance Game #1: Divide the kids into pairs: boy-girl or not, let the kids organize themselves into the pairs as they choose. With some pretty fast paced music for them to work with, have each pair ‘shadow dance’, where one of the pair shadows the others every move. It’s not so easy- especially when they’re moving quickly.

Dance Game #2: This allows every party guest their moment in the spotlight. Play some silly game to determine who goes first- such as choose a number between 1 and 20 in your head, and have each kid take a guess- the closest guess starts the game. Then get the kids in a big circle and put on the music. Starting with #1, each kid gets 1 minute in the center of the circle to show off their best dance moves – silly, crazy, whatever they want to do.

Dance Game #3 (my favorite): Get  the kids again in a circle, all holding hands such that no one has any hands they can use. Have them again choose the game starter- perhaps the best dancer from game #2 above. The kids have to pass a hula hoop all the way around the circle without ever letting go of each others hands. This is a challenge, and very silly.

If you own or can get your hands on a Wii, there are numerous videos/games that you can have for the kids to get them dancing and competing as they play the games.

The key to a successful and in-control preteen party is keeping things structured while keeping the kids busy. Having a few birthday party games to bring the kids’ focus onto a group wide activity is a good way to retain control of the group.

Puzzles are wonderful brain teasers and can make terrific birthday party games that quiet things down while challenging the kids. As long as the puzzles don’t too closely resemble schoolwork to the kids, they’ll get those brains fired up and try their best to find the answers.

Check out the puzzles from fropki.com, of which this graphic is an example. The challenge here is to remove the fewest matchsticks and have 4 little triangles remaining. You’ll find quite a few similar puzzles (just don’t tell the kids this is math!) and many word-logic puzzles as well. While I’d suggest that the word puzzles are perhaps a lot like school and maybe not your best choice, go through the options yourself and decide. One of these that I would recommend as a party game is “Reading Test” by Skippy- you’ll be quite surprised by this one!

A little lightweight competition between the kids at your party is something I always recommend to keep them engaged and tuned in. It works wonders. Divide the kids into two teams to attack these brain teasers as a group (the younger they are, the harder a group activity is) or put the kids in pairs to work out some puzzles and get the correct answers first. When those competitive juices are flowing, perhaps you can sneak in a word-logic problem at the end.

You’ll be amazed at how hard they’ll work to get the right answer when the problem they’ve been given is a team challenge structured as a birthday party game.

And if you want a super inexpensive (like free) home-made birthday party gift- print a whole bunch of puzzles like these out and make a booklet of them to give to the birthday child.

This heart garland from marthastewart.com is perfect for birthday party decorations for any February birthday child- but also very easy to tweak to match just about any party theme.

For a heart garland, start with various pink and red card stock or multiple thicknesses of construction paper, glued together for rigidity. Make or print out a heart template and cut out the hearts- I’d suggest using a mat knife rather than scissors, but either will work. Do as many thicknesses at once as you can handle to make the job go faster. Cut the hearts at the bottom so they can be interlocked, and glue the cuts back together once strung. Easy, and pretty.

It might be even more fun to use various sized hearts in your garland. If you’ve grabbed your template online, just resize it a few times and you’ve got what you need.

Now to tweaking this garland decoration for other party themes. Anything that you can grab a template for off the internet that has a recognizable shape will work: animals, dinosaurs, stars, flowers, rocket ships… Again, varying sizes and colors will make your garland decoration more interesting.

Best of all, you AND your birthday child can make these together and have some fun doing it. Together time is always a good thing.

String these up around the ceiling, make smaller ones to stretch along your party food table, use them any way you like. These are nice Do-It-Yourself birthday party decorations that look great and cost very little.

They can make ‘em and then play with ‘em; a birthday party craft and game idea that costs you almost nothing. How’s THAT for a good deal? Let’s give a Thank You to tinkerlab.com for coming up with this good idea that can be used at most any party for early elementary aged kids, i.e. age 6 to 8.

All you need to make these springy yo yo’s are balloons, rubber bands (fairly sturdy ones- not the super skinny kind), rice or beans and cheap plastic funnels- probably one for every two kids. They’ll use the funnel to fill the balloons with the rice, tying the balloons off with a rubber band. Then they loop one rubber band into the other to make the springy chain. DONE! They won’t need much help once you demonstrate how to chain the rubber bands together – see tinker lab’s photos for directions.

Now give them some targets to make a game out of playing with their new balloon yo-yo’s. Make a bull’s-eye with points on a piece of poster board and tape it to the wall. Divide the kids into teams with one team standing behind a line on the floor (use duct or masking tape for the line)and the other team members acting as judges and scorers. Using the yo yo’s, the kids take turns trying to hit the highest points on the target.

Or, suspend just about anything inside a small plastic bag from a door jamb as a target and let the teams have a go at hitting it from behind the line. You can even suspend your demo yo yo as the target! Give points for every time the target gets hit, and have the kids take turns trying to earn those points for their team.

Simple, creative, fun- what more could you ask for the price of the balloons, the rubber bands and some rice? Tweak this birthday party craft and game to your party theme by having that target reflect your theme. Make and play outdoors if your weathers good.

Winter weather calls for some creative thinking for indoor birthday party games that keep rambunctious kids both entertained and sufficiently active, without tearing the house down. Here’s 3 that fit the bill, all very loosely derived from the old standby paddle with a ball on an elastic string.

Thanks to infobarrel.com for their ideas on cheap birthday parties.

The first easy indoor ‘ball’ game uses marshmallows instead of balls and string instead of elastic. Play around with your birthday child to determine the best length of string to use here- not too easy yet not too hard for the kids you’ll be hosting. Tie that length of string around big marshmallows- preferably two for every party child. Working in pairs, which can be one from each of your two party teams, and standing less than string distance apart, one child tosses the marshmallow and the receiver has to catch it in his mouth. And, of course, then eat it. Yea- they’ll be a little dirt ingested; they say we all need to eat a peck of dirt in our lifetimes anyways, so why worry about it. If a team competition, the first team to get all their marshmallows consumed wins.

Ball game #2 takes big popsicle sticks from the craft store, paper plates, and either balloons or more marshmallows. Staple the plates to the popsicle sticks to make paddles.The kids may decorate their paddles as a mini-craft activity. Then, working again in pairs or pairs representing teams, the bat the balloons or marshmallows back and forth. Set a goal of 15 or 20 back-and-forths, or, give each team 10 points and they lose a point every time the balloon or marshmallow hits the floor.

Ball game #3 is a kids, dry version of beer pong! You need the big plastic beer cups and either ping pong balls or, you guessed it, more marshmallows. The kids are again in pairs or pairs from your two teams.Everybody has a cup, and each pair has a ‘ball’. Standing behind two lines on the floor (use duct or masking tape for the lines), they toss the ball and their partner has to catch it in the cup. Then back the other way. Again, give each child 10 points, with a point (or 2) lost every time the ball hits the floor.

Lots of fun and laughs from these silly ‘ball’ birthday party games, and some energy burned off too, even when they’re stuck inside. Do clear your game area of anything and everything breakable or valuable- best to play these games in the basement or garage. Your space constraints will determine how many kids at a time can play, so lower the starting points as needed so everyone gets into the game quickly, then rotate them through.

Creativity building games and toys make good and thoughtful kids birthday gifts as well as terrific kids activities for your own children. And this interactive video game from the UK certainly fits the bill. A bit pricey as a gift from just one party guest at 19.95 british pounds (just over US$30 as of this date), but certainly reasonable when shared by two party guests.

I’m a big fan of Geek Dad’s reviews and comments over at wired.com, and this game certainly passes muster with him. What really grabs my attention is his recommendation that this is a learning game to be enjoyed with the child, not one to hand to them so they stay out of your hair for a while. Anything that encourages parent-child interaction and is fun while still educational is a big bonus.

The Land of Me game was designed, according to it’s creator James Huggins, to be “interactive children’s media that was beautiful, enchanting and as much fun for me as it was for the kids”. It’s not a traditional video game but rather more like a toy with many creative possibilities. And get this- it actually encourages one of the most important developmental skills for young children- TALKING!

The game has 6 chapters all that unfold according to the choices made, and each chapter has many printable off-screen activities to continue the fun and learning. Again- unlike the traditional video game- only limited screen time is needed to get the imagination and creativity flowing and continuing beyond the game.

I encourage you to give the Land of Me game a free try yourself here, and once you’re hooked on it’s educational value, find another birthday party parent to share the cost and make a child and family very happy with this unique kids birthday gift. Do, of course,  consider getting one for your own family to enjoy too.

Found a couple more good birthday party games that easily convert to a Lego party themed game with simple tweaks. Put all these Lego themed games from the last few posts here together and you’ve got more than you’ll need for your next Lego party.

Both of these games are Lego versions of preschool game staples found at every carnival and fair they go to- because the kids really do enjoy these games.

#1- the Ring Toss game. Create a tower out of Legos that will be the target. Then cut the center out of paper plates to make the rings. Experiment with the distance for the target from the line on the floor or rug that they have to stay behind for the toss- duct or masking tape works well for the line.

#2- the Spoon Race. Place a bowl or bucket full of various Legos a good distance away from the kids- use that line on the floor from the preceding game. Divide the kids into two teams, each with a spatula or big cooking spoon (a spoon is easier because of the sloping sides- the ‘big’ is important here). Line the kids up on each team for a relay style race. On go, the first ones from each team go get as many Legos on their spatulas/spoons as they can and bring them back to their team, drop them on the floor and hand off the spatula/spoon to the next team member to repeat the process. When everyone on the team has done their thing, and not before, the kids start to use those Legos to build a tower. The first team to complete their tower is the winner. Cooperating to build that tower will be a challenge- and that’s the point.

Giving credit where it’s due- these ideas came from 365kidsgames.com

These are both tried and true kids birthday party games that fit beautifully with a Lego party theme, so have some fun with them.