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FOURTH OF JULY FAMILY FUN
Independence Day is almost here,
so why not throw
a birthday party for our great country?
Check out these easy ideas for a fun-for-the-whole-family Fourth.
Activities
Roll out butcher paper onto your party table. Scatter red, white and blue crayons across the table for the kids to color with while eating.
Fill balloons with red, white and blue crinkled paper. The kids can pop them for festive explosions of color.
Have the kids make small U.S. flags and place them into red, white and blue pails that have sand filler at the bottom. Turn this decoration into a game, and divide the kids into two teams and have them run, grab a flag and quickly walk back to the team line, where the next person must do the same. The team that has all the flags in hand fastest wins. Let the kids take the flags home as a favor.
Make a sidewalk chalk mural. Provide red, white and blue sidewalk chalk and let the kids create their own patriotic mural. They can create an American flag, fireworks, the Washington Monument—whatever suits their fancy.
Boil a dozen eggs and color them red and blue (keep some white!). Hold a relay race. Divide the kids into two teams and provide each team with a spoon and eggs. The kids must balance an egg on their spoons and walk quickly from one end of the yard to the other and return. If the egg drops, the team member must begin again. First team with all members completing the relay race wins!
For older kids, water balloons are loads of fun. Try a unique twist on traditional water balloon games by creating a small leak in each balloon via a tiny hole made before the balloon is filled. Then fill the balloon with water and let the kids toss the leaking balloon. It becomes a bit of a time bomb, as you don’t want to be the last one holding the balloon when it finally runs out of water. Quick, easy and fun!
Play classic relay race and picnic games like ring toss, sack race and three-legged race.
Play dress-up! The girls can add red, white and blue star beads to their shoelaces for extra patriotic sparkle.
Kids can make their own rockets with cardboard tubes, tinfoil, craft paper, tissue paper, glue, markers, ribbon and child-friendly scissors.
Tasty Treats
Have a red, white and blue taste test with the kids. Put out all sorts of food and spices in a series of small dishes for the kids to taste and guess what they are, making sure to blindfold the kids as they taste. Ideas for tasting include: salt, ketchup, blueberries, strawberries, French salad dressing, mayonnaise, sponge cake, strawberry jam, pepper jack cheese, beets, tomatoes, cherries, etc.
Freeze blueberries and raspberries in ice cube trays to make star-spangled cubes.
Make a “rocket pop” drink. Fill a glass with ice cubes and be sure to carefully pour each drink directly onto the ice cubes to maintain the patriotic colors. First, pour in cranberry juice, then blue Gatorade and, finally, 7-Up.
Using blackberries and cut-up/halved strawberries and bananas, have the kids create a fruit flag using the fruit pieces. They can place the fruit on a cookie tray that will be served to the rest of the guests. Kids can also make mini flags for themselves as well. Provide lollipop sticks to the kids and they can skewer these fruits to make a patriotic fruit kabob.
Using a star cookie cutter, make up a batch of patriotic star sugar cookies, star cheese slices and star sandwiches filled with cream cheese and blackberry jam.
Make a batch of favorite cupcakes and have the kids frost them and add red, white and blue sprinkles and candies to decorate.
Happy Fourth of July to your entire family!
Lisa Kothari is the founder and president of Peppers and Pollywogs (www.peppersandpollywogs.com), a kids’ party-planning company that provides parents with ideas, entertainers and interesting web-based tools (customized rhymes and cards for your invitations!) to make kids’ party planning easy. She has recently written and published Dear Peppers and Pollywogs… What Parents Want to Know About Planning Their Kids’ Parties, which is available at www.amazon.com and www.peppersandpollywogs.com. |
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