Simple Firefighter Birthday Party Theme

Little Brother is the kind of kiddo who when he makes up his mind he's pretty set on what he wants. In September (yes, September, as in 7 months ago September) he told me he wanted a firefighter birthday party. And he stuck to it all the way to the birthday party last weekend.

For his party we decided just to have a few playdate friends over. It was nice to have a small crowd and to focus on a few simple activities.

I will admit, I was surprised not to find more firefighter party products at our local party sources, but we got a little creative and has fun with some of our ideas!

Food & Decor:

Because it was such a small party, I kept food and decor pretty simple. I bought solid colored plates, napkins, and cups from Walmart and the Dollar Store. I added a few orange plastic table cloths for kids' tables and some fancy straws (also from the Dollar Store.) We also blew up a whole bunch of red balloons for the floor and had a small bunch of helium balloons floating. 

For food we served juice, pretzels, corn chips, veggies & dip, watermelon, hot dogs, and cheese sticks. All kiddo favorites and pretty much everything disappeared. 

Cupcakes: 

A yummy batch of homemade vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting. On top I sprinkled strawberry sugar from King Arthur Flour. I wasn't able to find fire truck cake toppers, which was one thing Little Brother had really expressed wanting to see, so I printed out a small batch of fire trucks and taped them to tooth picks. (Stickers could have worked too.) Easy Firetruck Cupcakes! 

Activities

This was a lot of fun to think out, and easier to plan with a smaller crowd. Some of the activities were stations, while others were like games. 

1. Firefighter Playdough 

I made a batch of our basic cooked playdough and added red food coloring and glitter. To go with the playdough I added a small set of firefighter figurines, colorful gems from our recent light table play, and cut up straws. The kids created different firefighter scenes. 

2. Paper Plate Firefighter Hats

I couldn't locate enough plastic fire hats before the party, so we decided to create our own firefighter hats using paper plates. To prepare the plate I cut circles out of the plates, leaving a small edge attached. Kids decorated the plates with red markers and we attached a fire fighter badge sticker in the middle. (We scored the badges from our local fire department.) We saw several ideas like this on Pinterest to inspire us. 

3. Fire House Ball Toss

This was another cute idea I'd spotted on the internet, check out the original pin here, and we tweaked it to make it even simpler. On white foam board I sketched out a simple house design. Using a utility knife I cut out three rectangles. On the back I taped red and orange crepe paper streamers. The kids used soft balls and koosh balls to get them through the holes. 

4. Simple Coloring Pages

I printed a bunch of free printable coloring pages of firefighters and fire trucks and set up a small coloring station. 

5. Spray the Fire Cups Down

This idea was inspired by a Fire Safety post over at Lalymom. For our game I used gold sharpie pen to draw flames on red solo cups. We stacked them into a pyramid shape on the deck and the kids took turns spraying them down with our water squirter. 

6. Pin the Firefighter on the Firetruck

At a birthday party earlier this winter the boys had fun with a spin off version of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, so we tried our own version: Pin the Firefighter on the Firetruck. I sketched a firetruck out onto white poster board and then colored it in using permanent markers. I also printed off a collection of small firefighters onto card stock and cut them out. Each kiddo took a turn pinning their firefighter onto the truck. (Most used a blind fold, but we let that be optional.) 

Favors

I was pretty excited to score these cute little red metal buckets in the clearance section of Target several weeks ago. 

I filled the buckets with the following things: a small ball of our firefighter playdough, wiki stix, natural all fruit twists, red and orange sixlets, a firefighter badge, a red glow stick, and a fire safety tips bookmark. 

The kids had a great time with the activities, and it didn't feel too overwhelming to run through all the things we had planned. As it was such a nice spring day we also had time to get kiddos outside to free play. At the end of the day, it was just the type of party Little Brother had hoped for, so as far as this Mama was concerned it was a success. 

We love party themes and have a lot of fun thinking about ideas for each one. Have you checked out our other kid birthday party posts?

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