Scarlett’s supergirl birthday party: activities

Since I am still able to control her social life, this weekend I steered Scarlett’s fourth birthday party toward a Super Girl theme.

As my girl has grown older, the threat of her being “eaten by princesses” has grown, too.  This recent article on Huffington Post about how we must engage little girls in conversations about things other than their appearances is important to me. Being pretty is not a pursuit I want my preschooler prioritizing. (And don’t get me started on the shoes made for little girls, most of which are clearly not meant for running or climbing, but rather for collecting compliments.)

This Super Girl party was satisfying to my birthday girl, fun and inexpensive for me, and welcoming to our guests of both genders.

We already had enough capes in our dress-up box to offer one to each child. That was big brother Julian’s job as people arrived.

I had four activities set up for the party. Each one was only engaging to a couple of the kids, so I am not trying to make you to believe that these are the world’s best birthday party activities, but having opted to throw the party in our own backyard, it was important to have things for the kids to DO.

(Full disclosure: a visiting kitten who was being held hostage in the master bathroom was the main attraction leading kids to continuously sneak into the house to get their little paws on the poor baby cat. Nothing I offered the guests could compete with little Zeus. Even the moms wanted to see him.)

Nevertheless, I hope you’ll find inspiration here:

1. Mask-making. I found this kit for embellishing superhero eye-wear at Target. They couldn’t have made it easier for me. Each kit contained four foam masks, markers, and geometric-shaped stickers.

2. Photo “booth”. My idea was to hang a star-spangled sheet of fabric over a pole (we have a garment rack on wheels) to create a backdrop for taking pictures.

I put out additional props, thinking the kids could have their Super Girl-style photo taken and that parents would want to pose with kids to get a funny family picture with hats and glasses. No one was that into it besides me and Julian.

He took this picture of Scarlett’s friend Simone.

Later she let me take this one.

I don’t have any shots of Super Scarlett.

3. Sand treasure table. My husband hid small plastic animals under the sand. And done. Not sure how this ties into the Super Girl theme. I guess I could have called it “rescuing” animals.

4. Bubbles – I made a large amount of bubble solution and set out various tools with which the kids could blow bubbles. In my fantasy, this was going to be a huge hit and turn my backyard into a bubble wonderland, with mind-blowing, gorgeous shiny balls of air drifting into the sky. In reality it was fun, but not quite so dreamy.

Again, not totally related to the theme, except for the colors. We helped the kids create their own bubble tool from a straw and string. I’ll detail those instructions in another post sometime.

Shazzam! Super Girl is now four. Onward and upward!