by Cindy Fanning

Created on: October 24, 2007

Planning children's birthday parties is a lot of fun. Your imagination starts to run wild with themes and activities that coincide with the theme you have planned. A carnival birthday party takes some planning and time to prepare the activities before hand, but it so worth the effort. This is one of those types of parties that kids will remember long after the party has ended as being "One of the best parties ever!". Trust me, my son, who is 18, still remembers his carnival party from when he was 5.

Start the excitement with fun invitations. Print up on your computer or if you are crafty, stamp out some invitations with "Hurry, Hurry, Step Right Up!", on the front of the invite and attach some balloons. On the inside, provide the details and be sure to throw just a tad bit of confetti in the card before you seal it in the envelope. Your child will enjoy taping balloons on the invites to send to their friends as well as putting a pinch of confetti in the cards.

Next comes deciding which carnival activities you would like to have at the party and how many adults you will have that will man a "booth". Activities like face painting with simple designs (balloons, smilies, stars, rainbows, spiders, cats or dogs are usually enough choices), bean bag toss, balloon pop, knock over the soda bottles, ping pong balls in the cup and sinking the basketball in through the hoop are a few of the ideas you might want to use. You might want a little prize for each activity, like a grab bucket, or give out tickets to be used at the "prize booth" where you would hand out goody bags, filled with items from the dollar store, to each child after the carnival. The tickets don't need to be fancy, cut up even pieces of paper and stamp a single, simple image on them. This is another easy thing your child can do while you are making dinner.

Once have decided on which activities to use, many of them are easy to make and your child can help you, which will add to the excitement. For example, the bean bag toss, take a large cardboard box and on one side, cut off the backside, paint several balloons, this is something your and your child can do together, then cut out circles inside of some of the balloons. Sew or pick up some bean bags from the local party store and you have a bean bag toss.

Now remember that side of the box that you cut off for the bean bag toss? You will use that for the balloon pop. Blow up balloons, and have your child tape them to the cardboard. Keep blowing, the little

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