Summer Birthday Party Games

Back to Back Tag

This birthday party game is great because it doesn’t require any setup or materials! Start by choosing one kid to be “it.” The kid who is “it” then gets to tag anyone not standing back to back with another kid. What makes this game fun and challenging is that no one can stand back to back with the same person for longer than five seconds. The first person who gets tagged is “it” for the next round of back to back tag.

Water Balloon Tag and Toss

This birthday party game is good to play after back to back tag when the kids are hot and want to get cooled off. My kids and their friends usually start the fun by running around the yard trying to tag each other with a water balloon. After the screaming and giggles of water balloon tag, they settle down and do a water balloon toss. To play this birthday party game, have the kids stand in two lines facing a partner and toss a water balloon back and forth to see how long they can toss it without it breaking. To make this birthday party game more interesting, have each pair take a step backwards after each time they both catch the water balloon. The last pair with a water balloon wins!

But I have to warn you that whatever birthday party game they choose to play, the water balloons go fast! So not only do I recommend you buy a large bag (for a whopping $1.39), I suggest you get help tying the balloons once they’re filled with water. I ran out of feeling in my fingers long before I ran out of balloons!

Fill the Bottle Relay

For the fill the bottle relay you need: a 2 liter plastic bottle, bucket of water, funnel and plastic cup for each team of kids in the relay. To set up this relay, place a 2 liter bottle with a funnel on top at the turn-around line for each team. At the starting line, each team needs a bucket of water and a plastic cup. Each kid in the relay must fill up their plastic cup with water, run to the turn-around line, pour the water from their plastic cup into the funnel and then run back and hand the empty plastic cup to the next team member in line. The team who fills up the 2 liter bottle first wins!

More Birthday Party Games

If you’re interested in more ideas for birthday party games, check out the series I did about my daughter’s Olympic themed birthday party!

Birthday Party Games: Olympic Theme - Part One

Birthday Party Games: Olympic Theme - Part Two

Birthday Party Games: Olympic Theme - Part Three

Printable Bingo Party Games

Jungle Animal Picture Bingo

Fairy Princess Printable Bingo Cards

Luau Bingo

Princess Bingo

Jungle Animal Bingo

Farm Animal Bingo

Princess Bingo Game

Luau Bingo Game

Check out more printables with these printable mad libs while you are here, too! And you may also like our scavenger hunt ideas and birthday party games as well.

We’ve put together a rather large collection of Greek coloring pages and mythical creature coloring pages over at Fantasy Jr. Here are all of them in one place!

Greek Gods Coloring Page - Poseidon

Printable Greek Masks

Ancient Greek Gods and Greek Heroes Coloring Pages

Greek Masks and Mask Coloring Pages

Unicorn Coloring Pages

Pegasus Coloring Pages

Centaurs, Cyclops, and Griffins Coloring Pages

Fauns, Minotaurs and the Phoenix Coloring Pages

We hope you love all the coloring pages from the Woo! Jr. Kids Activities Network!

Woo! Jr. has a big selection of Earth Day printables, crafts, and activities for kids from all their websites!

Mother's Day Craft: Tissue Paper Flower Topiary

I just finished posting the instructions to make this super-cute tissue paper flower topiary over at Craft Jr. Even though the craft uses straight pins, kids as young as five can make this for their mom on Mother’s Day! It’s a super easy craft for kids that is practially fool-proof.

More tissue paper flowers are over there, too. Also great for May Day crafts!

Cartoon Dragon Coloring Pages

Chinese Dragon Coloring Pages

Medieval Dragon Coloring Pages

Celtic Dragon Coloring Pages

Here’s more printable coloring pages, Chinese New Year printables, and other mythical creatures coloring pages, too!

Printable Easter Cards

Disney Family also has an adorable 3D printable Easter card featuring who else but Thumper!

Animal Jr. has modern and pretty printable Easter cards to color or in full color.

Vintage Holiday Crafts has gorgeous vintage Easter cards to print.

Gulf Shores Real Estate (?!) has only one card on their site, but it’s a beautiful pop-up 3D card worth seeing.

Fun with Pictures has great cartoon Easter cards to print.

Be sure to catch our Easter coloring pages and our easy Easter Bunny cupcakes, too!

Some recent changes caused me to rethink how I ran this Seasonal Kids Activities blog, and I decided to develop it way more than I had originally intended (I’m in fact spinning it off into it’s own network!). Then I decided to hunt down a few kids crafting blogs to connect with, and found way more than I bargained for. I’ve mostly stuck to reading Craftzine in the past, but these blogs I’ve found recently are special because they all focus on content that are craft projects specifically for kids to make. Some are easy preschool level crafts, some are definitely for older kids. But they all are beautiful to look at, creatively inspiring, and produce what I believe to be the some of the best kids craft content on the web.

Support these Great Kids Craft Blogs by Independent Crafty-type People

Craft Jr.	Craft Jr. is my new blog (OK, I’m biased that mine is one of my own favorites!) where I will be posting all of Sparkplugging’s craft projects from now on. I’ve been a little OCD about it, I think I have a lot of pent up craftiness to let loose over there!
Crafty Crow	The Crafty Crow is a ‘Children’s Craft Collective’ in which they gather up great craft projects from around the web and post them all in one place. They find some of the coolest stuff on the web!
One Pretty Thing	One Pretty Thing is also a collection of crafts from around the web, but it is mostly crafts kids can make - some of them are things adults can make for kids. Total eye candy here, plan on getting stuck at the site for a very. long. time.
Fem Manuals	Fem Manuals is written in Spanish, but I’m just blown away by the creativity of their projects and use of everyday materials to make absolutely beautiful things! They also post a lot of photos to Flickr so that you can mostly figure out how to make their projects without needing to read Spanish.
Little Birdie Secrets	Little Birdie Secrets has adorable kids crafts sprinkled in with some really yummy looking recipes, including pies and cupcakes in jars!
Zakka Life	Zakka Life shares gorgeous crafts made with the most surprisingly simple materials. Who knew paper bags and toilet paper rolls could be so chic!
Dollar Store Crafts	Dollar Store Crafts - a woman after my own heart! I hate going to my local crafts store and dropping $100, especially when I know I can make great stuff from the dollar store for less than $10!
Croq Zine	CROQ Zine is written by the same people behind Dollar Store Crafts, and is the companion blog to the CROQ Zine print magazine. Just the illustrations on the covers are worth a visit!
Kiddio	Kiddio is a combo craft project and craft collective bog, and another one that finds ways to make everyday objects into lovely bits of awesomeness.
Kids Craft Weekly	Kids Craft Weekly is more of a newsletter than a blog, but you can get a taste of the coolness they have to offer both on their site and in their Flickr photo pool.
Plaid Kids Crafts	Plaid Kids Crafts is the kids craft blog by the people from Plaid craft supplies. They may not be an indie blog, but their creativity makes up for it!
Make and Takes	Make and Takes is a well established blog written by a crafty mom who seems to have a never-ending stream of creativity. She also has some super-cool recipes tucked in here, including one for Root Beer Cookies. Don’t tell my son - he won’t leave me alone until I make them!
One Crafty Place	One Crafty Place is one of my new favorites on this list. This is a craft collective blog, and also includes some irresistible adult crafts too. As if I need more things to do right now!
Wee Life	Wee Life is full of crafty creative stuff along with some local things to do with kids for several major cities. Plus they have a scrumptious section of printables. Yay!
Skip to My Lou	Skip to My Lou is so beautifully designed that it makes me feel happier just to see it. She also does frequent giveaways of crafty cool stuff, what’s not to love??

If you’re still in need of creative inspiration, check out these art websites for kids, too!

Awesome Pokémon Coloring Pages

Pokemon Coloring Page

More Pokemon coloring pages from Coloring-Page.com

Charmander Pokemon Coloring Page

More Pokemon character coloring pages from Pixalgo.com

Poison Pokemons

More Pokemon themed coloring pages from Coloring.ws

Cool Pokémon Printables

I’d have to say that most of all, I am completely impressed with this Pokemon website for kids called PaperPokés, full of free printable paper crafts of Pokemon characters. The attention to detail makes them quite remarkable, but I’ll also have to say that it also makes them not for the impatient! My 9 year old son was able to put together one of the simpler figures, but adult help will be required on some of the more complex paper models!

You may also want to check out these Star Wars printables too, or all of our printable coloring pages!

This post has been moved to Craft Jr. at  Easy Easter Crafts: Easter Finger Puppets

Easter Pipe Cleaner Finger Puppets

Easy Kids Craft: Origami Kites

This post has been moved to Easy Kids Craft: Origami Kites on Craft Jr.

Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are Movie

Where the Wild Things Are - The Movie

Enjoy These Free Spring Wallpapers for Your Computer

Spring Bumble Bee and Purple Flower Wallpaper

Spring Bumble Bee and Purple Flower

640 x 480 | 800 x 600 | 1024 x 768

Blue Dragonfly in Pond Wallpaper

Blue Dragonfly in Pond

640 x 480 | 800 x 600 | 1024 x 768

Pink Flower in a Spring Rain Wallpaper

Pink Flower in a Spring Rain

640 x 480 | 800 x 600 | 1024 x 768

Fantasy Jr. also has free Unicorn desktop wallpapers! And we have lots of other spring crafts and activities, and Animal Jr. has plenty of spring printables to enjoy, too, and Printables4Kids has a lot of spring fun, too!

For year-round Irish fun, check out these cool Celtic dragon coloring pages or these Celtic designs coloring pages.

St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Kids:

Printable St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun Coloring Pages

Animals get in on the fun with these St. Patrick’s Day Animal Coloring Pages

Or find the pot of gold at the bottom of these rainbow coloring pages!

St. Patrick’s Day Word Search

But my allergies don’t act up when my daughter dresses up like a puppy! So I made her some puppy ears to wear around the house. This puppy I can handle!

What You Need to Make Puppy Dog Ears:

• Brown construction paper
• Scissors
• Hole punch
• Scotch Tape
• Yarn
• Stapler
• Markers or crayons

How to Make Puppy Dog Ears:

1. Cut out two puppy dog ears from the brown construction paper.

2. Cut a strip of brown construction paper 2 inches wide and 10 inches long.

3. Use the hole punch to put one hole at each end of the strip of paper.

4. Cover each hole with scotch tape.

5. Decorate the puppy dog ears with markers or crayons.

6. Tie a six inch piece of yarn to each hole in the strip of paper.

7. Staple one puppy ear to each end of the strip of paper.

Now you’re ready to tie these puppy dog ears to your child’s head! But BEWARE OF THE PUPPY DOG you just created . . . if she’s like mine, she likes to bark!

So here are some great online resources for making your own printable puzzles!

Maze Maker

PuzzleMaker

Crossword Maker

Or alternatively, grab some already made printable mazes and let us do the heavy lifting! Check out the rest of our printable word puzzles, too!

What You Need to Make a Paper Bag Duckbill Platypus:

• Small lunch size paper bag
• Piece of newspaper
• Brown construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Stapler
• Googly eyes or markers

How to Make a Paper Bag Duckbill Platypus:

1. Stuff a small piece of newspaper into the paper bag.

2. Close the paper bag and fold the edges of the opening inward to make a point.

3. Staple the two folded edges of the paper bag together in the center.

4. Cut out four webbed feet from brown construction paper.

5. Cut out a beaver like tail from brown construction paper.

6. Cut out a beak from brown construction paper.

7. Glue two webbed feet to each long side of the paper bag.

8. Glue the tail to the top edge of the bottom of the paper bag.

9. Glue the beak over the staples at the folded edges of the paper bag.

10. Glue googly eyes on or color them on with marker.

11. Use marker to make two nostrils on the beak.

This paper bag duckbill platypus is easy to make at home or with a classroom of kids!

For more ideas, check out these kid crafts!

Printable Animal Masks:

Gorilla Mask

Dragon Mask

Lion Mask

Bunny Mask

Bear Mask

Also, Amazon has some truly amazing cut out and punch out mask books for kids, including butterfly masks, cat masks and these great farm animal masks.

For more free and fun paper activities, check out these printable mad libs, printable word puzzles, printable mazes and printable coloring pages.

Ingredients to Make Kids’ Lasagna:

• 1- 15 ounce container of ricotta cheese
• 2 Tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 jar (3 cups) of spaghetti sauce
• 8 uncooked lasagna noodles
• 1- 8 ounce bag of shredded mozzarella cheese

How to Make Kids’ Lasagna:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning.

3. Spread one cup of the spaghetti sauce to cover the bottom of a 13×9 glass baking dish.

4. Place four uncooked lasagna noodles over the sauce in the baking dish.

5. Spread half of the ricotta cheese mixture over the lasagna noodles.

6. Sprinkle half of the bag of mozzarella cheese onto the ricotta cheese layer.

7. Spread one cup of the spaghetti sauce over the mozzarella cheese layer.

8. Place the remaining four uncooked lasagna noodles over the sauce layer.

9. Spread the remainder of the ricotta cheese mixture next.

10. Spread the remainder of the spaghetti sauce, making sure to cover the lasagna noodles.

11. Top with the rest of the shredded mozzarella cheese.

12. Bake for 45 minutes and let it cool for ten minutes before serving.

For more kid-friendly recipes, check out these easy recipes!

What You Need to Make a Paper Plate Penguin:

• Two paper plates
• Scissors
• Glue
• Orange and black paint, crayons or markers
• Googly eyes (optional)

How to Make a Paper Plate Penguin:

1. Cut up a paper plate as shown. This craft uses every piece you cut out so don’t throw anything away!

Paper plate penguin craft template

2. Paint the two wings black and the three triangles orange.

3. Paint a black v-shaped ‘hairline’ on the penguin’s head as shown.

4. After the paint has dried, glue the two wings onto the top rim of second paper plate, the big orange triangle onto the penguin face for it’s beak, and the two small orange triangles onto the bottom rim of the plate for it’s feet.

5. Glue two googly eyes above the penguin’s beak, or just color them onto the face if you don’t have any googly eyes laying around.

For more winter ideas, check out these winter crafts, or the penguin coloring page in this set of winter bird coloring pages.