11th Birthday Party Ideas

We’ll give you the four 1-1— turning 11 will be so fun with a party from our 11th birthday party ideas!

Lizards Party
Slither, crawl, or hop— everyone will love this reptawesome Lizard Party! Cut out lizard footprints and lay them around the house. Get colored balloons and tape on lizard heads, tails, and feet for floating creatures. Get a tiered chocolate cake with sugar lizards crawling all over, alongside strawberries with candy lizard tongues and a slithering veggie tray— lay colorful veggies down the sides, and sliced cucumbers down the middle to form a lizard! Play a game of feed the lizard cornhole— paint two lizards on the platform with their mouths on the holes, and see who can feed them the most cricket bean bags! If you live near a science museum, see if you can get a group rate on the reptile exhibit. Or, hire a reptile expert to bring the crawlies to you and teach all the kids about lizards! For favors, give out iced lizard sugar cookies or sticky lizard toys.

Swimming Party
This swimming party will be a total splash! If you have a pool at home, have everyone wear their favorite bathing suit. Give everyone a pair of goggles as they arrive. Set up a treat table with a blue tablecloth and serve summer foods, like watermelon wedges and fish and chips (goldfish and potato chips) in beach pails. Hang pool noodles as a backdrop and use pool towels as a table runner. Get a pool-shaped cake with sugar pool floaties on top! Complement it with beach ball cake pops and sandal sugar cookies. Outside, play pool games like Marco Polo or pool basketball! It is a swimming party after all, so have a swimming contest! Whoever swims to one side of the pool and back the fastest wins! If you don’t have a pool at home, look into group rates at your local pool or recreation center. Send everyone home with their very own pool float or noodle.

Pokémon Party
If you gotta catch em all, you gotta throw this party! Set up with a red tablecloth and red and white balloons. Get different colored paper lanterns and use construction paper to give them ears and eyes to turn them into your favorite Pokémon characters. Decorate the table with Pokémon figurines and instead of a cake, organize white, red, and chocolate frosted cupcakes into the shape of a Poké Ball. Serve Poké Ball cake pops, bunny Peeps (aka Pikachus!), and green Kool Aid Squirtle spit! Help everyone transform into their favorite Pokémon with a mask station. Pre-make shapes of 4-5 different Pokemon heads with strings on the back and let the kids glue on eyes, ears, and other details. Take the party outside for a Poké Ball hunt! Wrap black tape around the center of red and white fishing bobbers and hide them all over your yard. Give everyone a yellow bucket— whoever finds the most wins bragging rights and a Pokémon video game! As favors, give out decks of Pokémon trading cards.

Apollo 11 Party
Want to throw a party that’s out of this world? Take one small step for birthdays, one giant step for 11 with this Apollo 11 Party! Give everyone a NASA sticker or t-shirt to wear as they arrive. Hang circular paper lanterns in different colors from the ceiling to look like planets. Set up a dessert table that will leave the kids star struck, with a rocket ship cake and planet cake pops. Add some more sweets to your spread with jars of Mars bars or Milky Ways. Want to eat just like the astronauts? Grab some freeze-dried ice cream to go with that cake! Blast this party off and rent a moon-bounce! Once everyone has come back down to Earth, send them off with some moon rock rock candy treats.

Lacrosse Party
This lacrosse party is sure to score with the birthday boy or girl. Have the guests wear their favorite lacrosse jersey or t-shirt. Decorate with streamers and balloons in colors of a favorite lacrosse team. Use astroturf or a grass-like material to cover the treat table. Buy a small lacrosse goal to stand over your pedestal of chocolate lacrosse cupcakes— ice them with green grass frosting and stick a mini candy or plastic lacrosse stick in the middle. Complement them with lacrosse stick cake pops and a chips and dip display with the dip shaped like a lacrosse field! Set up lacrosse camp outside and test everyone’s skills at scooping, passing, cradling, and shooting! Play a game of lacrosse trivia and see who knows the rules best— winner gets a new lacrosse stick! Hand out lacrosse water bottles filled with candy to take home.

Camping Party
Is your kid a natural outdoorsman? Let’s take the celebration outside with a camping party! Keep the group small and invite everyone for a sleepover under the stars. Set up tents in the backyard around a campfire (but not too close)! Make sure everyone brings a sleeping bag and a pillow. Roast hot dogs for dinner and set up a trail mix station for a crunchy treat. Mix up green Kool Aid in a punch bowl with plastic bugs for some refreshing “bug juice.” Before the sun goes down, do a nature scavenger hunt. Pick 11 items that the group has to find outside. And no campout is complete without s’mores! After the scavenger hunt is done, toast marshmallows over the fire while everyone tells their favorite ghost story. In the morning, send everyone off with their own s’mores kit so they can have s’more fun at home!

Chef party
Is the birthday kiddo a master helper in the kitchen? Cook up some fun with a chef party! It’s easy to decorate— use your kitchen utensils as table accents and lay out a red checkered table cloth. Set up a place for each guest with their own paper chef hat! Have pizza crusts and toppings in the middle of the table and let everyone come up with their own creation. While the pizzas bake, have everyone decorate their own apron (you can usually find child-sized at craft stores) to take home. Felt markers and felt glue-on shapes will really jazz up these take-home treasures. Go for a cake shaped like the birthday boy or girl’s favorite food— hamburger? French fries? A pile of nachos? The menu is endless! For a fun treat serve edible (egg-free) cookie dough and cake pops with chocolate drizzle to look like whisks. Bon apetit!

Glitter Party
What 11 year old girl doesn’t love glitter? Put a sparkle in her eyes with this glitter bash. Get a sequin tablecloth and hang sequin or glitter garland behind the table. Fill clear balloons with glitter before you blow them up for some fantastic floating decor! Get a classy white fondant cake with glitter on the edges, along with cake pops rolled in various colored edible glitters. Serve sparkling punch in glitter cups along with glitter frosted doughnuts and chocolate covered strawberries accented in glitter. Have everyone take a hit at a piñata covered in sequins that’s filled with not just candy, but glitter! (For easier cleanup, consider using larger paper confetti instead of fine glitter.) Have a glitter craft station with items like sunglasses, hats, or necklaces that everyone can dazzle up with glitter and modge podge! Send everyone home with a set of their own glitter pens.

Ninja Party
Hi-ya! Kick it with this thrilling Ninja Party. Take the party to the karate studio for a private class. Consider making it a smaller group so everyone gets personal attention when learning the moves. After the lesson, serve asian-inspired treats to refuel like rice and veggie sushi rolls, chocolate-dipped pretzel nunchucks, and ninja cheese— just peel the red strip off of one side of a BabyBel cheese wheel, and use food coloring to draw eyes into the white cheese showing through! Get a karate ghi cake with a belt, or serve cupcakes with ninja faces on top. Play a game of pickup and see who can pick up the most small candies with chopsticks in a short amount of time. The winner gets a pair of their own plastic nunchucks! Have all the guests sign a white belt for the guest of honor to keep. Send everyone home with a gift bag of knotted sour rope candies that look like a belt.

Policeman Party
Does the birthday boy want to grow up to be a policeman? Throw him a dispatch bash! Make sure the guest of honor has a police chief hat to wear. Set up a dessert table with a blue tablecloth and decorate it with police cars. Hang a “police station” banner behind the table and get blue and yellow star balloons. Serve blue velvet cupcakes with blue frosting and sugar badges on top. Set up platters of burglar burgers, cop corn, and mini doughnuts. Set up a station where everyone can create their very own police badge— then send them to the academy! Play a game of red light, green light, and create a horseshoe station where you use plastic handcuffs in place of horseshoes. Test their detective skills with a backyard scavenger hunt. If your local police station does tours, take the group to see the real life cops get to work! Give away handcuff shaped sugar cookies. Everyone will be putting their hands up for this party!