Birthday Party Ideas for Boys

We know that boys are made of much more than snips and snails and puppy-dog tails! Celebrate your little guy’s birthday with inspiration from this list of fun ideas that are perfectly suited for your birthday boy.

Fireman Party

Your aspiring firefighter will never forget this blast of a party! Call your local fire station ahead of time to schedule a tour of the facility for an extra special treat! Bring the boys back home and welcome them each with their very own plastic fireman’s hat before starting the games with an obstacle course. Test their agility with by dodging falling embers with a game of dodge ball. Create a ledge out of sturdy wooden boards to enhance balance skills. Test their strength with a relay race carrying water buckets. Play Hot Potato where all of the kids except one are in a circle. One stands in the middle of the circle and keeps his eyes closed while a red ball is passed around. When the one says “stop” whoever has the ball becomes ““it”” and moves to the middle. Have the boys decorate cardboard boxes to look like fire trucks that they can “wear” while they run around the yard putting out fires made of tissue paper tucked into shrubs and trees in the yard. Decorate with lots of red, yellow, and orange helium balloons and use white paper plates with black dots to represent the station Dalmatian. Turn red Solo cups into little fire hydrants with the magic of a black permanent marker. Decorate the birthday cake with red icing, lots of red/orange/yellow M&Ms, and top it with a toy fire truck. This fireman’s birthday party is sure to be a real barn-burner!

Bowling Party

Throwing your boy’s birthday party at the local bowling alley is low on the effort scale but very high on the fun scale! What’s better than showing up with your gaggle of boys to an alley that is all set up and ready for your group to have fun? Add a twist and ask each guest to wear a retro bowling shirt. Remember to reserve your party with the bowling alley and determine if you can bring in your own food and decorations. For the less-experienced bowlers, consider asking for the bowling bumpers to avoid too many gutter balls. Wrap drink or water bottles in white paper and put rings of red tape around the top to transform your party drinks into bowling pins. If you want to get creative with the birthday cake, use sports ball cake pans to bake your cake and then decorate it with fondant icing for a smooth surface and add three black circles for the “holes”. Your birthday boys are certain to strike their way through a perfect birthday party!

Soccer Party

Get this birthday party started by warming your soccer players up with a game of balloon header- where they keep the balloon up in the air as long as possible with their head. Transition into a game of “soccer bowling” where you use water bottles as bowling pins and have your players kick the soccer ball to knock down the most pins. Bring the “referee” into the match with a game of Yellow Card, which is twist on freeze tag. Choose one kid to be the referee (which is actually the ‘tagger’). The referee needs to run around and tag other players by sticking a yellow sticky note on them (which indicates that the player has received a yellow card- meaning that they have committed a foul) and needs to freeze. The only way a frozen player can be free again is if another player crawls under their legs (the players need to keep the yellow sticky notes on them). If a player receives three yellow sticky notes that player is out of the game. The last person to stay in the game wins and becomes the next referee. Top off the fun with a soccer ball piñata, but in this game they have to use their feet to break it! For decorations, use black and white balloons and streamers. Cover the table with inexpensive green tissue grass mats to create a “grassy” soccer field table. Use white athletic tape to create the goal lines, halfway mark, center mark, penalty area, touchlines, and corner arc.

Paintball Party

Hosting a paintball birthday party will keep your boys busy and happy all day long! Have the paintball party at a commercial paintball field or in your own backyard. As long as your guests wear protective paintball gear, this game is totally safe and extremely fun. If your birthday boy has never played before, gift them a paintball gun package that includes everything they need to play, such as a paintball gun, protective mask, hopper, and CO2 tank for a discounted price. If it’s possible, host a ‘BYOPBG’ (Bring Your Own Paintball Gun) party. Let your guests know ahead of time that CO2 tanks and ammunition will be provided. If guests aren’t able to bring their own gear, having your party at a commercial paintball field is a great alternative. It’s also smart to stock up on several low priced paintball masks and extra hoppers in case guests show up without them or there’s a breakdown. Remember that protective eye wear is always mandatory. Instead of just releasing your gaggle of boys into the open wild, organize several paintball games that are suitable for your location. The most simple game is to divide your group into two teams and play simple elimination rounds. Most players enjoy using working strategies and communication skills with their team mates to conquer a mission. Consider playing games like Capture the Flag, where each team has to infiltrate the other’s base, capture their flag and bring it back to their home base to win. A game called All The President’s Men is also fun to play; 2-3 players must protect one another, while the rest of the group has to try to eliminate the target. You can even build makeshift bunkers for your guests to hide behind. Consider using stacks of old tires, barrels, barns, sheds, or simply a pile of wood! A field littered with big round hay bails makes a very good paintball battlefield. If you have a wooded hill, King of the Mountain is also very fun game to play; several players on top of the hill try to defend their position while being attacked by all the rest!

Pokemon Go Party

Pokemon Go has taken the world by storm— especially the younger set. Join the craze and celebrate your birthday boy with a Pokemon Go party! Set a meeting place such as a public park where you know there will be tons of Pokemon to catch. Enjoy walking through the park catching Pokemon together. Either rent a pavilion at the park or head back home after the hunt to continue celebrating with yummy food and drinks. The circular Pokemon shapes provide some great food ideas such as turning a cheese pizza into a Pokeball by using black olives to form the line across the center and circle in the middle. Pepperoni slices form the red half of the ball while the white side remains cheese only. Decorate paper lanterns with Pokemon character faces and hang a Pokeball piñata— all kids love a pinata full of candy and trinkets! Play Pin the Tail on Pikachu, and if you’re feeling really creative, transform your birthday boy’s favorite character into a deliciously delightful birthday cake.

Green Army Man Party

Watch how these little green men come to life through the boys’ vivid imaginations! Be creative from the start with invitations made by stuffing camo canteens with simple “draft notices” that give all the party details. Finish off the canteens with a handwritten dog tag complete with each guest’s name and personally hand-deliver each invitation to your party guests. Provide buckets of green army men and ask the boys to wear camo clothing to the party. Top the birthday cake with a toy green jeep (and little green Army men, of course!) and make some medallion sugar cookies as yummy treats. Decorate with star medallion tags, green army men, balloons, dog tags, cracker jack bags, favor bags, paratroopers, and other camouflage details! Use fun names for the treats such as Cracker Bullets for the Cracker Jacks, Chocolate Cake Grenades for cake pops, Atomic Sugar Cookies for the cookies— have fun thinking up your own! Get the troops moving with an obstacle course. Have them dash under saw horses, jog through tires, climb up a ladder, and drop a paratrooper (which they get to keep), slide down the slide and into a pool if you have one. This party is sure to receive a medal!

Camping Party

Camp outs are perfect for boys who want to get away but aren’t quite old enough to go out on their own. Start your rocking camp party planning by sending out invitations shaped like tents, of course! Provide enough tents so that everyone has sleeping space, but have your guests bring their own sleeping bags. Some fun camping games and activities include catching lightning bugs in glass jars, sleeping bag races, and telling ghost stories. Roast hot dogs and marshmallows by the fire or on the grill. Sing campfire songs from the past or make up your own, but remember to sing the most important song of the night, Happy Birthday!

Beach Party

If your birthday boy’s idea of a great time is spending a day a the beach, but you can’t get there, bring the beach to your backyard! Transform your yard into a sandy retreat by filling inflatable swimming pools with sand. Add some shells and hide some trinkets in the sand for a fun treasure hunt. You can even fill a pool with ice and drinks for a handy and refreshing treat. Set up a volleyball net and create a game of bowling by using a coconut as the ball and colored water bottles as the pins. Fill beach buckets with a variety of snacks and use the shovels as serving spoons. Fill a clear glass fish bowl with Goldfish crackers for an edible decoration, and make sand dollar cookies by placing 5 sliced almonds in a circular, flower-like arrangement on top of sugar cookie dough before baking. Provide plenty of beach balls, and don’t forget the sunscreen and a water hose for keeping cool! Play lots of beach tunes and if your feeling extra-beachy, have an air-surfing contest!

Minute to Win It

Throw a Minute to Win It party and challenge the boys to try and complete wild and wacky challenges in a minute or less! Choose a selection of games for the challenges using ordinary household objects as props. To play the Mummy Game, have the player take the loose end of a roll of toilet paper and hold it in their hand. The roll is held on a holder, broom stick, or by another player next to them. When the clock starts, the player must spin around as fast as they can as the toilet paper wraps around them. The winner is the most covered mummy at the end of one minute! In Skittle Scurry, a large bowl of Skittles is set at one side of the table while a cup is placed on the other end. Give players a straw and on the start of go, they have one minute to suck as many Skittles as they can onto their straw (one at a time) and race it over to drop it in their cup. At the end of one minute, their Skittles are added up and the places are given based on who collected the most. In Cup Hands, each player must place a party cup over each hand and stack as many dice as they can on top of each other in one minute. The player with the highest tower wins!

Gamer Party

Invite your guests to get their GAME ON on for this unique birthday party experience! If your budget allows, hire a Game Truck to come to you and provide your eager group of gamers 90 minutes of uninterrupted gaming. Game Trucks even provide a gaming coach to be with your players the entire time to make sure that the boys are playing the games they want and to keep them safe on the truck throughout the party. Game characters provide ample ideas for decorations ranging from a PacMan brie cheese wheel to Space Invaders cupcakes! While the kids are on the Game Truck, offer the parents some video game themed snacks, such as Power-up Star fruit, Hothead Hummus, and Fire Flower Veggies. Use silicone ice cube trays to mold melted candy into little chocolate Wii remotes and top them with fondant Pacman and his ghost friends. Even boys love photo booths, so hang some fabric and use two light stands to create the backdrop. For another alternative, tape fabric or bulletin board paper to a wall. Remember to include plenty of props such as PacMan, the ghosts, power up stars, mustaches, Donkey Kong, and speech bubbles. Dig through your old costume boxes to find Super Mario hats and a few aliens masks to add to the fun!

Super Hero

Gather your group of energetic boys for a super hero birthday party. BAM— they’ll have a blast! Ask each to choose their favorite super hero and provide lots of colored felt, fabric glue, and elastic string so that they can make their super hero capes and masks when they arrive. Decorate the room with blue and red balloon garland that is made by stringing together lots of red and blue balloons and hanging them from the ceiling. Green rock candy on sticks makes a perfect source of Kryrptonite for Super Man while little bowls of fruits and veggies also provide super energy for these busy group of super heroes! Cut out a bunch of super hero comic strips and to wrap around your drink bottles and create paper cones to hold snacks. Set up a photo booth with super hero props and take lots of pictures as the group poses after saving the day!

Cowboy Party

Recreate the wild west for a boot-kicking good time at your cowboy birthday party! When my son turned five I rented a pony from a local farm. The owner dropped off Charlie, the pony, all saddled up in western gear and the boys took turns riding him around in circles in our backyard! If renting a pony isn’t an option, you can still throw an amazing cowboy party. Provide your guests with cowboy hats and bandannas they can take home as party favors. Corral your little buckaroos for a game of Boot Tossin’, where you set up some hula hoops for targets and have the boys toss boots into them. Place the hoops on the ground and assign a point value for each. Play a game of “Catch the Bandit” next, where an adult plays the part of the bandit. Each guest is armed with a lasso (hula hoop) and a squirt guns. The little cowboys must chase the bandit and try and lasso him with their hoops and squirt him. When the Bandit is lassoed, he must freeze and pay the fine to be released. The fine is candy that the bandit throws out for all the cowboys! Another big hit is a game of Gold Rush, where you take a kiddie pool and fill it with sand and trinkets (the gold). Let the guests use sand sifters or strainers to sift through the sand to find the “gold”.