How to Plan an Outdoor Water Balloon Theme Birthday Party for Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers

Children love attending outdoor birthday parties and tossing water balloons. You can combine these two fun activities by planning a water balloon themed birthday party for your child. This party theme idea is a particularly fun one for older toddlers and pre-school aged children.

An advantage to you as the birthday hosting parent is that the water balloon themed party needs to be held outside. The outside location helps to keep the party messiness out of your house. You can set the entire party up outdoors either in your own yard or at a local park.

This article will give you some creative ideas for water balloon party invitations, birthday cake, water balloon party games, and water balloon birthday goodie bags.

DIY: Water Balloon Birthday Party Invitations
To kick off your child's fun water balloon party in style, make your own custom invitations using brightly colored cardstock. Cut the cardstock into a balloon shape and write in the party details. Draw little bubbles in the balloon shape to imitate a water balloon. Be sure to let the parents know that this party will have water balloons and to have each child bring a swimsuit and a change of dry clothes.

Order or Make a Water Balloon Birthday Cake
If you're crafty, you can make a water balloon birthday cake by drawing the water balloons on the cake with frosting. You can add other details such as water droplets, sunshine, or swimming trunks.

If you'd prefer to order a cake from a local bakery, look at their existing designs to see if they can modify a standard balloon design into a water balloon design.

Organize Water Balloon Birthday Party Games
The key to a water balloon party is, of course, the water balloons! Since water balloons do take a great deal of time to fill up and kids are naturally restless, you'll want to pre-fill as many balloons as possible. Enlist the help of your older children, spouse, grandparents, and neighbors if you can. One idea is to load up coolers with pre-filled water balloons and then portion out the water balloons into plastic bowls or buckets for the children to use.

You may want to plan several different games using the water balloons. The traditional water balloon toss is great for pre-school aged children. The idea is for two children to stand close together and toss the balloon back and forth. With each successful catch, the children take one step away from one another. The team that can go the longest before the water balloon breaks wins a special prize!

For younger children, the water balloon toss may be too complicated. Instead, consider a water balloon stomp! Place a filled water balloon in front of each child and have them stomp it. The water will splash their feet and delight them.

You can also set up a water balloon toss target. For this game, each child will toss a water balloon towards a designated target. The child who gets the closest, wins a special prize. You can set-up several different targets at different locations so that young toddlers don't have to compete against older children.

DIY: Assemble Water Balloon Birthday Goodie Bags

Purchase plain colored paper lunch sacks. Have your birthday child help you to decorate the sacks in advance of the party. You can add stickers or just draw water balloons with crayons or markers. In each goodie bag, place water themed favors such as a package of water balloons, water balloon stickers, water soaker balls, or even pocket sized water games. Oriental Trading sells a dozen of the pocket sized water games for about $7.95.