Daughter 5Th Birthday Party

Honestly, I would not want to have a party with 5 year old kids in the water until they were older, unless the parents were all watching their own kids. Just too much potential danger for me, but I'm admittely a worrywart with water.

If you wanted to keep with the water theme, you could fill up water balloons and have kids play games with them (like egg/spoon race) and the goody bags could be little sand buckets. You can usually find cheap ones at the Dollar store. Musical chairs on towels instead of chairs? Leis/luau decorations and fruit kabobs would be cute.

My 5 year old had her last party at the bowling alley. If you had a duck pin alley near you it'd be even better (smaller balls).

Good Luck!
T.

Sounds pretty fun and easy to me!
What I did for my son's 5th, was make it pirate themed (this was several years ago before pirates became so popular, actually). The kids each received a treasure map (I made them myself with tea-stained paper) of our yard (and obstacles in the yard). At each "obstacle" on the map, they found a new pirate item. They got a bandana for their head upon arrival, with the map. Then they found eye patches (which I made myself), gold clip on hoop earrings (yard sale items), and plastic pirate swords (Walmart) at different locations on the map. They had to "walk the plank" (jump off the deck onto the grass - small jump and safe--they were boys, they loved it), and wade across a lagoon (plastic wading pool) to get to different items.
We divided up the kids into 2 groups of 4/5 kids and had maps that started at different points for each group (but they all went to all the stations and ended up at the same location). It worked out great! They got to the end at the same time. I had a wooden box (treasure box) filled with cheap jewelry/beads, etc at the end, and they divided up the "treasure" (there was one of each item for each child). A friend even agreed to dress up like a pirate... and she jumped out behind a bush as they found the treasure box at the end. Then she applied temporary tattoos on the kids (she had a whole bunch and let them choose which one they wanted).
Their "goody bag" was for them to hold with all the accessories they found during their treasure hunt.
We had a small yard... but by mapping out the stations going around the house... it worked out fine.

The kids had a BLAST. And so did the adults! :)

Another idea, relating to water.... We had a fabulous water party one year. We already had a little pool (maybe 4-5' diameter) so we filled that up with water. We already had a sprinkler toy too, so we set that up. One of our daughter's gifts was a slip 'n slide, so we set that up. To decorate (since it was outside) we went to the party store and bought an inexpensive set of blow up fish, octopus, crab and a cheap decoration fish net. We decorated a tree with the fish net and various inflatable animals.

The activities are pretty obvious, play!!! We bought a bunch of water squirter toys at a dollar store (or Five Below). Those were for the party and take home favors. We marked a place in the yard and had the kids take turns trying to shoot the inflatable items in the tree with their squirter toys (drawing from the pool). They had a mini water fight and we set up a bunch of water balloons (that was the hardest part) which was fun. We also purchased a foam pool noodle at the Dollar store and used it for playing Limbo.

The total cost of the party (not including the slip 'n slide) was probably about $25 and that includes the take home squirters (6 or 8 kids total). We bought a cake with the Little Mermaid theme.

Don't forget to bring extra sun screen!!
Have a blast!
Liz

Lots of good suggestions so far. One more thing! Don't forget to ask your child what s/he would like to do/have. You'd be surprised at some of the good ideas s/he'll come up with. My dd will be 5 in July and she's involved in many parts of the party process, including making the party favors. Last year we had a fiesta theme and she and I made pinatas. Sometimes it sounds like a lot of work, but it was actually pretty fun. You can never go wrong with a summer pool party though! Good luck!

You could do jewelry making - get a bunch of beads and inexpensive baubles and let the kids make their own jewelery.

You could also make cupcakes but don't frost them. Put out all the decorative fixings (frosting, candy, sprinkles, colored sugar etc...) and let the kids decorate their own cupcakes.

Get plain flower pots and prime them prior to the party. Let the kids paint them at the party and pick seeds to grow in them.

Do a hula hoop contest, sack races, 3 legged races etc...

Have someone come from the zoo or aquarium with an animal. Build a theme around whatever animal is coming.

Let the kids decorate bookmarks and give them a book as a favor.

Let them decorate lampshades. You can find very inexpensive lamps and shades, depends on how many kids are coming to the party.

They could decorate picture frames and put a pic of your daughter and the friend in the frame for the friend to take home.

Let the kids decorate hats, tshirts, etc..

I have a bazillion craft ideas.

Put a sprinkler in the backyard and let them play in it.

Have the party at the zoo or aquarium. Have a tea party. You could do that at home or at a tea room most areas have tea rooms or something similar. Go to a park, a baseball game, a petting zoo..... ok, sorry. I'm not even sure if this is what you're looking for and I've gotten carried away! ha ha ha :) Have fun!!

I have winter babies so I can't have any of the fun summer birthday parties for them, but I always love to read about summer party ideas in the magazines. I read one about an icecream cone party. Instead of cake and ice cream you have different flavors of ice cream with ice cream cones and different toppings for the kids to choose. They had the happies in little ice cream cones too. They used colored tissue for the "ice cream" and had happies inside.
You could also have a hula hoop party. The kids compete to see who can keep a hula hoop up the longest and whoever wins gets a prize. They could all take the hula hoops home as their goodies.

It depends on how much time,money and energy you want to devote. You can get great ideas from FamilyFun.com.
I have done everything from t-dye parties, luau parties, homemade carnival party . . . . .
It depends on your child's interest. You can take any theme and change original games to match it. For example i threw a monkey themed party. Games included toss the banana (plastic banana into a bucket). Tyedye party included a bubble machine going and we made tyedye shirts (no goodie bags given out, shirts took place) For the carnival party I took refriderator boxes and turned them into games. We had tic tac toe bean bag toss, rings on the bottles and more. I even made a giant clown they could poke their heads through and have their picture taken with.
There are so many things you can do. I always keep my ideas fresh (you have to with 4 kids) and do a lot of research online for more ideas! And for a special touch, I always make a homemade themed cake.
Good luck and let your imagination run wild!!

my suggestions would depend on things like: how many guests do you plan to invite, what kinds of things does your daughter like, will the parents and siblings stay or will a lot of parents "drop off" the kids (around age 5 was when I noticed more parents dropping off the kids at their friends' b-day parties). If it's going to be a lot of kids dropped off, I wouldn't recommend a pool party for safety reasons.

Also JMO but I've found that with so many parents trying to do "event" parties (bouncy houses, themes, professional magicians, etc.) because they want to do something "different", we forget why the "traditional" party has endured: kids really like it! When my twin daughters were 5, we had their party in the back yard and the big hit of the event was a fellow mom who offered to help with the face painting - picture a line of about a dozen kindergarten girls happily squealing "face painting! face painting!"

So I guess my advice is: think of what your daughter and her friends enjoy, plan some party activities around that idea, and don't drive yourself crazy trying to re-invent the birthday party. 5 year olds have a built-in capacity to be blissfully happy with even simple party activities, and as a parent it's a real joy to see them getting a lot of enjoyment out of what might seem like "just a plain old party" to us "jaded" adults ;-). And keep a mental or written notes about the other party ideas for when they're older!

how about hosting a Tea party, ask the girls and boys to come in dressy clothes and you can buy some necklaces, gloves and rings etc ( can also make this as the party favour) and then have nice little teacups and saucers and you can either serve hotchoclate or tea( my daghter had a tea [party in school and they served tea) i actually served hotchoclate at my daughters 6th i used the disposable coffee/expresso cups that come witha handle but i have also seen some nice dainty teacups that were not very expensive in the discount stores.You could serve cuccmber and cream cheese sandwiches, PBJ sandwiches , ham and cheesse Etc, crackers, some cake. have fun! there are some people you will host a tea party for you there was someone in Maryland cant remember the name ( the lady had once given my daughter a pkt of tea when she was crying in the store will look to see if i can find it) if i do will let you know or try googlng tea party

I think a pool party sounds fun. My own kids are nervous in the water, though, and only like it if we are in with them. My daughter had a bowling party and it was a lot of fun. She's also been to several ceramic painting parties (if you have that type of thing in your area, they are nice & calm). For my twins' 4th, we are renting a park pavillion and grilling. They'll run & play at the park, eat, have a pinata, etc.

My suggestion is to do a pool party but look for some fun games to add to it. Like Marco Polo, races, maybe even a break for bingo (with pictures) and have some fun party gifts for who ever wins and maybe a few little things for the kids who didn't win any games just so they feel included and not bummed because they didn't win.