3rd Birthday Party Ideas

Three’s a party! Celebrate with our great 3rd birthday party ideas!

Kidchella Party
This Kidchella party is totally rad, dude! Give every guest a VIP pass to wear around their neck and a flower crown. Set up the perfect boho hipster space with pastel tones, a burlap tablecloth, and tall sunflowers in vases. Decorate a wall with paper flowers and set up teepees in the corners. Get a tiered cake with sugar flowers, a dreamcatcher, and feathers on top. Serve watermelon on a stick, trail mix, and rainbow snow cones! Set up a flash tattoo station and let everyone pick an awesome tattoo to wear (with their parents’ permission)! Hire a band to come play some of the birthday boy or girl’s favorite hits. Set up a concert stage and let all the kiddos rock out in the pit! For favors, send everyone home with a dreamcatcher.

Goldilocks & The 3 Bears Party
This party is just right! Create a woodland escape with a brown tablecloth and line the table and surrounding area with leaves and branches. Decorate with teddy bears of all shapes and sizes. Get a bear cake and bear cake pops with ears. Serve gummy bears, porridge, and bear-shaped PB&J sandwiches—create a face and ears with bananas and blueberries! Rent a bounce house so everyone can try it out and see if it’s too hard, too soft, or just right! Play a game of pin the curls on Goldilocks and set up a bear ear station. Use brown headbands, felt ears, and a glue gun to create ears for every little bear. Send everyone home with a mini bear-shaped bottle of honey.

Tricycle Party
Take your little one for a ride with this tricycle celebration! Rent a vintage tricycle to park by your front door and hang a welcome sign from the handlebars. Surround the dessert table with pastel balloons and hang a tassel banner on the front of the table (it looks just like bike handle tassels)! Get a cake shaped like a tricycle and make white chocolate wheel cake pops. Serve salty snacks in upside down bike helmets like pretzel wheels. Buy three radio flyer tricycles and create three teams for a great race! Play a game of pin the tassel on the handlebars and send everyone home with a baggie of wheel spoke Twizzlers.

Three Ring Circus Party
Your little one is the ringleader of this party! Have a three ring circus bash that will send everyone over the (big) top! Fill the room with bright colored balloons with stars and stripes on them. Use a red tablecloth to design the treat table and use a cake shaped as a circus tent as the centerpiece. Offer elephant cookies, bowls of animal crackers, and cracker jacks. For the backdrop, get light up marquee letters to spell out the birthday boy or girl’s name. Get everyone in on the fun and hand out clown noses for kids and parents to wear! For fun, create a ball pit with bright plastic balls in a kiddie pool! Hire a clown and put on a hilarious show.

Hollywood movie party
Lights, camera, action! Roll out the red carpet for your 3-year-old star. When your guests arrive, have everyone create their own Hollywood star with star cutouts and finger paint. As they dry, take turns in the photo booth, where you’ll have a box of pearls, boas, hats, and all kinds of red carpet attire. Create a dessert table with a film roll cake, movie ticket cookies, and movie theater candy. Have the guest of honor pick his or her favorite movie to watch, and set everyone up with a bag of popcorn to accompany their sweet treats. This party would for sure be an academy nominee!

Three Little Pigs Party
Huff and puff and blow the candles out! Everyone will howl for this Three Little Pigs party. Create a backdrop by using cardboard to make three houses—one of straw, one of sticks, and one of brick. Buy pink paper lanterns and glue on paper ears and noses to create hanging pigs! Serve pigs in a blanket and piggies snack mix—just mix potato sticks (straw), pretzel sticks (sticks), and dark chocolate chunks (bricks). Get a tiered cake with sugar houses and 3 pigs on top. Or, go for cupcakes and decorate half with pink frosting and pig faces and half with chocolate frosting and wolf faces. Get a house-shaped pinata and let everyone take a smack to see who can blow it down. Take this celebration to the next level and create a pig pen in the backyard, literally! Bring in three pigs for all the children to meet and play with. Send each guest home with three pig and one wolf finger puppets.

Young, Wild, and Free Party
Was the third year a wild whirlwind? Celebrate with a Young, Wild and Free party! Create a dessert table with a neutral tablecloth and a paper banner with elephants, giraffes, deers, bears, or any of your favorite wild animals on it. For a classy look, get plastic animals and spray paint them gold or silver to decorate the table. Make animal print sugar cookies or cake pops with bear ears! Get a cake with metallic accents and wild animals on top. Make a playlist of animal songs like “Eye of the Tiger” or “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and get everyone dancing. Send everyone home with a “Young, Wild, and Free” t-shirt. They were born to be wild!

Garbage Truck Party
Does your little one love when the garbage man comes? Throw a trash bash! Set up big green trash bins outside your front door and give everyone an orange vest as they arrive. Use big black garbage bags for table cloths and cut old newspapers into strips to create a garland banner. Get big, round green and black balloons and use upside down metal trash bins for food pedestals. Get a garbage truck shaped cake and serve sanitation sub sandwiches and dirt dessert with worms cups. Use a big glass drink dispenser for green koolaid junk juice. Have everyone participate in a garbage game—have a trash toss by tossing small garbage bags filled with washcloths (or something with weight) into three garbage cans at different distances. Make sure everyone takes their trash with them by filling small black baggies with green and chocolate candies.

Unicorn Party
This Unicorn party is a magical fete! Create an tablescape with a light pink tablecloth. Decorate with unicorn figurines or stuffed animals, and use white pedestals to hold unicorn-shaped cookies and desserts. Instead of a cake, opt for vanilla cupcakes in gold liners with light pink frosting—put mini ice cream cones on top to look like unicorn horns! Use red, orange, green, blue, and purple streamers to create hanging garland behind the table. Serve rainbow fruit salad and rainbow fruit loop marshmallow bars. Fill a jar with unicorn droppings (rainbow jelly beans) and have everyone take a guess at how many are in the jar, the winner gets to take it home! Get everyone in the magical spirit with a horn station. Roll different color papers into a tall cone shape. Let each guest choose a color, and help them attach it to an elastic that they can wear around their chin. Finish them off by attaching rainbow ribbons to the tip!

T-Ball Party
This T-ball party is sure to be a home run! Have the guests wear their favorite baseball jersey or t-shirt. Use astroturf or a grass-like material to cover the treat table and use a red and white stripe table runner. Get red and blue balloons for behind the table and use plastic home plates as serving trays. Set up a hot dog station and serve snacks like potato chips and sunflower seeds in children’s size baseball mitts (line them with cling wrap to keep them clean). Get a tiered cake decorated with a baseball diamond, gloves, and bats, and complement it with baseball cake pops. Set up a t-ball camp outside and test everyone’s skills at swinging and hitting from the tee. Get a baseball shaped pinata but instead of using a stick, use a plastic bat! Hand out baggies of field favorites like cracker jacks and bubble gum.

High Tea for Three Party
It’s time to par-TEA! Have all the invitees wear their favorite party dress. As everyone arrives, create personalized tea party hats with a hat station. Provide straw hats, flowers, ribbons, and a glue gun—have the adults help out with the construction! Once everyone is stylin’ in their new hat, start the tea party off with warm tea and iced tea in fun colored tea pots. Don’t forget, pinkies up! Decorate the table with paper doilies and tie strips of tulle into bows on the back of each chair. Set up dainty snacks like mini sandwiches and fruit pizzas on tiered platters. Fancy girls can have fun too! Hold a balancing contest where each guest walks around and balances a plastic tea cup on her head. Or play a game of hot tea cup (hot potato) and pass a tea cup around until there’s a winner! Put together baggies of tea bag-shaped shortbread cookies as a parting gift.