Environmental Theme Birthday Parties
Green Games, Healthy
Party Food, Ecological Party Ideas and Tips for an Environmentally
Friendly or Recycling Themed Birthday Party
Considering an ecological,
green, low environmental impact, environmentally friendly children’s
birthday party? The great thing is that a low-carbon footprint party takes
only a bit more effort than the usual sort, but it saves a lot of money as
well as being environmentally friendly.
Should we be introducing these serious
issues at a children’s birthday party? I have entertained at dozens of parties
with a sustainable theme, and they have been among the best. Our children
are going to have to live with the mess we are leaving behind, so as long
as they are having a good time, we should take the opportunity. Looking
after the environment is not something we do separately from the rest of
our lives!
So Here are a few
Tips and Ideas for an Environmentally Friendly Green Eco Party with a Low
Carbon footprint or Recycling Theme
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Sustainable Party Clothes
Fancy dress is always a good idea for
any children’s party so to fit an environmental theme how about
Scarecrows and Scallywags or Recycled Ragamuffins or Tramps and
Princesses? These are really easy party themes as (apart from princess
dresses) it needs no more than worn out badly fitting clothes and a bit of
imagination. Recycled clothes from charity shops or jumble sales will work
well as will re-used cast offs from older siblings. Children’s story books often have illustrations that can be
used for ideas.
And how about a fancy dress parade with a prize for the winners?
Environmentally Friendly Party Decorations
You want
party decorations from a sustainable source, so here are a few ideas:
Balloons are fairly OK as they are
usually made from natural rubber that comes from sustainable plantations. The colours are synthetic but we don’t need to be fanatical
about it. Don’t use helium balloons as if they get released the balloons
can end up being mistaken for food by marine life or wild animals.
As for the rest of it, a forest
theme using branches and trimmings from the garden can look great, or if
you want a recycling theme, use junk or recyclable materials – foil crisp
packets, drink cans, bottles etc. Just be careful with anything like
newspapers that could be a fire hazard. Its a good opportunity to get
children involved with the sustainable theme if they help to make them.
This giant willow
sculpture, decorated with natural materials, was the centrepiece at a
village Midsummer Party.
You don't have to go to
such lengths to make decorations from sustainable materials, but it can be
a lot of fun, and everyone can join in - this little girl is adding
flowers to one of the legs.
Sustainable Tableware and
Decorations
Plain paper plates and cups are
clearly more sensible than the garish ones you can pay a lot of money for,
and unlike plastic, paper is biodegradable.
Paper tablecloths too are
biodegradable and environmentally friendly, and how about a plain white,
and if you can find any, just large sheets of plain white paper. Not only
does this have a low environmental impact, but you can sit the children at
the table with some felt tipped pens and get them to decorate it. Even
better use wax crayons as they have a much lower environmental impact
(felt tips are mainly plastic and quickly run out of ink) but be careful
if you are putting hot things onto a wax decoration as it will melt and
get onto someone's best party clothes
If you want to be really green,
how about about eating
chips (or any party food) out of newspaper? It goes well with a tramps
theme - remember to put a clean piece of recycled kitchen
towel on it to keep it hygienic, and let them eat with their fingers. Hot
Dogs and burgers in recycled napkins is another alternative.
A hall
will often have crockery
available, and if you have any available grandparents, they will love to do
the washing up!
Eco
Party Activities
There’s more to parties than
games. How about a bit of craft activity first? Every scarecrow needs a
crown to wear and you can easily spend half an hour getting the children
to make one. Use recycled cereal boxes or similar, cut into a rough crown
shape and staple at the back so it fits round a child’s head. Older
children and adults can help younger children. Then decorate them – glue
on shiny shapes cut out of washed crisp packets, biscuit wrappers or other
packaging, then have a fashion parade and maybe prizes. It’s cost
nothing and gets across the idea of re-using materials that are thrown
away.
If you are lucky enough to
be having an outdoor party children will happily run about, playing hide
and seek, tag, or blowing bubbles, and treasure hunts are always popular.
Children love being noisy so how about
an Environmental Can-can? Get o load of drinks cans, wash them out and
leave somewhere warm to dry. Provide a selection of dried beans, pebbles
etc, and let the children put a few in a can and shake it. (tape over the
hole first). It’s amazing what a difference the various beans make to
the sound. Then organise a can-can dance with children shaking the cans
(you’ll need to find a way to play the tune – either use a recording
or a kazoo).
Music
I've been a
professional children's party entertainer for 25 years, so take it from me
that party music sets the tone of the party. If you play disco or wild pop
music you are creating an over stimulating environment that is the
equivalent of feeding children on sugar and E numbers. Chose something
reasonably calm, and a bit different - you'll be surprised at what a
difference it makes.
Environmentally Themed Entertainment
Some
children's entertainers now offer an environmentally themed show - the
quality varies enormously so try to find someone who has been recommended
by a friend. If you live in South West England, then
Professor Paradox is
highly recommended and his award winning
Environmental
Show is guaranteed to make people laugh as well as think
Green
Games for an Environmentally Friendly Birthday Party
Musical Oil barrels
In this
game the oil barrels are represented by paper circles on the floor.
Because we are using up all the oil, there is less to go around and so as
we drive around in our gas guzzling cars while the music plays, one of the
oil barrels is removed, so when the music stops, one person is out. OK its
musical chairs in disguise, but everyone knows how to play it and
hopefully gets the message about diminishing resources
Pin
the Blades on the Wind Turbine
It's a
lot easier to draw a wind turbine than a donkey and this is simply pin the
tail on the donkey in another form. Each child is blindfolded in turn,
turned around three times, then had to pin a cardboard blade onto the top
of the turbine - Easy!
Musical Trees
Everyone
knows that when humans are not looking, trees dance around whenever they
hear music, but they have to stop when the music stops. Any waving
branches and that tree is out!
Carbon
Footprints
A version
of Grandmothers Footsteps that you can adapt yourself
Treasure
Hunt
Children love
treasure hunts and if you are able to have an outside party so much the
better. Prizes can be simple - its the joy of finding that counts
Finding Things
An outdoor
game for open spaces - children in pairs and each pair has to collect as
many different types of something as they can. this could be leaves,
grasses, wild flowers - whatever is appropriate to the situation. This is
great for getting children to take an interest in the environment and of
course there is a prize or two for the winners
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Food
Of course you want to
give children healthy unprocessed food that didn’t come in a packet from a
supermarket, but remember that not all the children will necessarily eat
bean sprouts and carrot juice. If it's a class party from school, some of
the guests may live on pizza and crisps, so you have to try to please
everyone. Children will almost always eat sausages, beans and burgers
(particularly the ones from vegetarian homes) and it isn't difficult to
get good quality organic alternatives, and even vegetarian alternatives
for children who don't want to eat meat. Pizza is always popular, and
again there are healthier options, and gluten free alternatives are
available.
Crisps are almost indispensable
and again there are some good ones available that are not so loaded with
fat and salt, and you can even get organic ones if you are prepared to pay
for them.
You'll want to avoid too much
sugar, so well presented fruit salads with a good quality ice cream are
good instead of the usual sugar junk. Presentation is important so present
it as 'Tropical Island Fruit Salad'. It's easy to make horrible fruit
salads - Granny Smith apples, banana and orange is the worst combination
we have come up with, but it is just as easy to make good ones, and
remember that children have strong likes and dislikes, so a platter of
pieces of mango, pineapple, melon, grapes, mangoes and tangerines will work
well so children can select the bits they like.
As for the cake, the birthday
child will probably want a theme so the best thing is to get a birthday
cake book, and adapt it to a healthy recipe. Don't be too purist - you can
make a good chocolate cake that doesn't have too much sugar in it, or even
better a carrot cake, but do avoid fruit cakes because children have a
tendency to dislike one of the things in it and will spend ages picking
them out. The tradition of the birthday child blowing all their germs all
over the cake before it is divided up is as enduring as the cake itself so
not a lot we can do about it, but if you do think of any alternatives let
me know!
Healthy Drinks
As for drinks, obviously avoid
the usual sugar saturated E number hyped up tooth rot so be imaginative.
How about water from the magic fountain that gives everyone super powers
so that they can run faster, see further and hear distant sounds from
beyond the forest and behind the moon? It's only fizzy water but with a
bit of imagination it can taste pretty good. Alternatively there is a huge
variety of interesting fruit juices and you can dilute them with fizzy
water - poured from a jug they look better and lend themselves to names
like Juice of the Tropical Rainbow Fruits from the Enchanted Islands of
the Golden Lake.
If you can have an outside
party then a picnic is always a good option then you can sit children on
rugs and they will just enjoy the novelty of a picnic
Environmentally Friendly Party Bags
Very few parents like party
bags. They tend to contain worthless plastic junk, sugar, and E numbers
and most of the stuff is quickly thrown away to end up in land fill. There
are however alternatives - an activity book, or a story is much better and
doesn't cost a lot.
