Pool Noodle Birthday Party (sans the pool)

Alas, my poor son's birthday is in sweltering month of August and I am always looking for creative ways to keep the kids active and yet cool them off. So this year we tried an outdoor game theme with the main ingredients being pool noodles and water.

Thank goodness for the Dollar Tree! I was able to get the pool noodles, balloons, paper airplane kits, buckets and squishy balls there!

POOL NOODLES
First up, the Target Station. I got the idea to make this target from Parents.com. However, I decided to have the kids throw the pool squishy balls through the target instead of pool noodles.

 

 

 

 

 

Target Station

I  had so much fun creating the rings, that I next created a Ring Toss station.

Ring Toss

 Sponges in buckets of water made up the Splash Down game. The players take turns throwing their sponges into the bucket near the other player to try to soak them. The rules of the game can be found on Spoonful.

Splash Dow

 Use Your Noodles involved pool noodles with duct tape wrapped around the ends (think safe bat) and balloons. The noodle bats later became party favors. More details on this activity can be found at at Parents.com.

Use Your Noodle

I tried to make a Badminton net out of pool noodles. That did not fare so well, but the kids still had fun!

Badminton

The Paper Planes station included fun paper plane kits I found at the Dollar Tree.

Paper Airplanes

The balloon pinata was an absolutely brilliant idea and I am grateful to whomever first posted it on Pinterest. The original blog can be found here.

Pinata

Last, but not least, I had a bubble station for our younger guests. 

Bubbles

 By the end of the party, the kids had resorted to sitting in the kiddie pool, spraying each other with water guns, and dumping buckets of water over each others head (while the adults watched safely inside through the sliding glass door.)

Mayhem

PIRATE CAKE
I tried to make the pirate cake depicted on Spoonful, but my cake was not as pretty as theirs. However it did look quite impressive when the candles were lit!

Pirate Cake

Pirate Cake

Fire!

 It was a great birthday party over all!