How to Have A Horse Themed Birthday Party for an Elementary Aged Child

There are lots of things to think about as you begin to plan for a child's birthday party. Our girls all have a birthday between Thanksgiving and Christmas so for us the party and it's planning need to be easy to manage and affordable. Here are a few other things to consider:

When: The day and time of your party can make a big difference when it comes to both budget and availability of guests. We have found that an evening party works best so we can include guests from all schooling options as well as have adequate adult help and time to prepare. We also like to do a Friday night, after the commitments of the week and before the craziness of the weekend.

Where: This year my girls really wanted a home party. This is fine with me, but it does require a bit more planning so be sure you're up for that before you agree. For us, a home party turned out quite a bit cheaper than hosting a party at a "fun" location and we were able to do exactly what we wanted with the exact number of guests we wanted.

What: After we map out the when and where, I make a list to start planning I use categories and then fill in under them with the details and the supplies it will require. This saves time and is a lot easier to keep track of during this busy season. My list looks like this:

This is one area that you can really save money in if you are willing to do a little work. We really enjoy the process of creating so this is a fun step for us. Invitations can be made in lots of different ways. For a horse party you can take plain cards and decorate them with horse or birthday stickers and a cute saying like "Ride on over to a Party" or "It's a Birthday Round Up" and then write the details inside, you can make a flyer style invitation that matches your theme using the computer or you could use horse shaped paper and write your details on that. Really, your creativity and time are your only limits here, so have fun!

I let my cowgirl choose the menu and she wanted things horses love! We ended up settling on horse shaped mini pizzas, cheerios (for oats), apple slices, and horse shaped rice crispies. Not the healthiest of meals, but easy to make and fun to see and eat.

Horse Shaped Mini Pizzas

I used pre-made pizza dough and cut it out using a horse shaped cookie cutter. (I saved the extra pieces around the edges and turned them into pizza bites for the baby).

Then add sauce and toppings and bake according to the package directions. We decided to keep ours simple and have them all cheese and all ready to eat, but you could really get creative and let each child make their own using a variety of favorite toppings.

Horse Shaped Rice Crispies

We make rice crispies the traditional way by melting a bag of jumbo marshmallows and 3 T. of butter and then adding 6 cups of rice crispie cereal. Next lay them out of waxed paper to dry and finally cut them out with the horse shaped cookie cutter. We did a few cowboy boots and hats as well.

Apples

I did wait to wedge these until right before the guests came so they would be fresh on the plates.

As my birthday girl greeted her guests I filled plates and brought them to the table so girls could start eating right away. This really helped get the eating part over and keep them busy as soon as they arrived.

For me, the table is one of the easiest elements to plan. We usually set a budget and then look at choices and let the birthday girl pick her favorite. This year she really wanted real looking horses. She also decided to add a fun touch by making name plates for each of her guests. She used horse shaped paper to color a different horse for each guest (yes, she did get our her horse dictionary to be sure the markings she was coloring were correct!). After she made the horses, she glued them to the front of a blank note card and then wrote the friends name with a sharpie, on the inside she wrote a little message about what she liked about that friend or a favorite memory they have. It turned out to be a really sweet things for the guests to take home and enjoy and it really made the table look extra special! Because our kitchen is tiny, we decided to put our 8 ft. portable table in the living room so the girls would have plenty of room. It worked great having it already set and having the kitchen table available to set the craft up at.

For me, the craft is optional. However, I have a girl who LOVES crafts. We decided to make horses out of corks. It looks like a simple project, but it was a bit more complicated that planned. I was very glad we did it ahead of time! We ended up assembling the horse and painting them, again because she wanted them to look real, ahead of time so all the girls did was choose fun yarn colors and make cool braids for the tail and mane. That turned out to be a big hit with the girls and they loved helping each other hold and braid. Here are the complete directions for the project. We decided to do this project at a table in our kitchen so I could have it all set up and ready to go. It really saved time to be able to move straight from dinner to the craft.

This was my favorite part of the party. They were easy to set up and really fun to play, the girls really had a ton of fun!

The Horse Course

We set up a small obstacle course in our basement. It included:

A jump: We made this using two wood blocks from the garage with the inside of a wrapping paper roll balanced between them. You could really balance anything long and cylinder shaped.

A Barrel: We used the round toy bucket for this.

A bridge: We used the inside of a toy tunnel, but you could set up two chairs to go between.

Cones: We used 3 athletic cones and a kitchen pitcher to set up a maze to weave in and out.

We played this first since it was already set up. The girls took turns traveling the course like a horse, on all fours. They did the jump, 3 circles around the barrel, the bridge and then weaved through the cones to the finish line. They LOVED it so we did it lots of time, we tried fastest time, funniest horse, best horse pose, the possibilities are as big as the imaginations playing it. I loved the active nature of this game. It got lots of energy out! I loved that they could cheer each other on and that it didn't cost any money to create.

Pin the Rider on the Horse:

We used a poster we had of a horse for this game and then got some paper doll stickers. The girls loved choosing the stickers for their dolls clothes! I split the girls in pairs and gave each pair a page of stickers. They each worked with the partner so that each could choose a doll and clothes. They were great about taking turns and really had fun with this part. When all the doll stickers were dressed, the girls took turns being blindfolded, spun around and then attempting to stick their doll on the horse. This brought a lot of laughter and was also really inexpensive.

Feed the Horse:

This game got a little crazy, but they LOVED it and they were great about helping pick up the mess! I took 2 of my girls toy horse and two plastic cups. I set a horse with a cup in front of it on either end of the piano bench. Then we split the girls into teams. Each team had a large plastic bowl full of pasta (our original idea was to use cheerios, keeping with the oats theme, but I had a on of pasta left over from a lesson that I didn't want to waste or eat, so it became horse food!) The teams lined up behind their bowl and took turn being blindfolded. The blindfolded player had 8 seconds to grab as much "food" from the bowl and toss it into the cup as she could, she had to stay behind the bowl the whole time. Yes, it made a huge mess and they grabbed and threw, but they all pitched in to put the pieces that weren't in their cup back in their bowl between each round. It was loud and crazy and tons of fun!

We finished the night with cake and a movie. I had a lot of fun making this cake. I used a 9x13 pan and made my girls favorite cake, marble. Then I covered a cutting board by wrapping it with white paper. I didn't actually have white paper so I turned some wrapping paper inside out and it worked great! When the cake was cool I transferred it to the waiting board to decorate. We decided on a meadow with a lake and a fence. I did the lake first. I did an outline with blue icing and then filled in the middle. Next, I did the green for the meadow on both sides of the cake. When the base was done, I used blue and green decorating sugar to make it sparkle. Next, I used an icing tip to add purple flowers around the meadow. Finally, I added a fence from one of my girl's play sets and 3 of her favorite horses. I decided to leave it looking authentic I would write the Happy Birthday message in marker on the white board paper and add the candle right before we sang and cut the cake. She loved it and it was super easy to make. After cake the girls headed back downstairs to watch a horse movie together.

It was a busy night full of friends and fun. I loved that it was affordable, easy to plan and totally customize to fit the theme she loves!