As a kid, you look forward to one major day of the year: your birthday. You get to have all of your friends together to eat yummy treats and do fun activities together—all to celebrate your life. Unfortunately, social distancing throws a major wrench in any typical plans a parent can have when planning a kid’s birthday party. Not all is lost. Here are a few ideas for throwing a social distancing kid’s birthday party.
Neighborhood Drive-By Party
Coordinate with party guests to be out on their front porch or lawns at the designated time. Deck out your car with balloons, streamers, and signs. While blasting your kid’s favorite songs, slowly drive by every guest’s house for waves and shouts from people who are full of birthday love.
Sky Zone Virtual Birthday Party
This trampoline park company misses hosting birthday parties while we’re all stuck inside. So they’re offering FREE virtual birthday parties that keep the fun alive. Your kids will get to see and interact with their friends through an online network. Plus, their Sky Zone team will guide them through 15-20 minutes of games, active play, and singing “Happy Birthday.”
Family Baking Class
You’re going to be making a cake (or chosen) dessert anyway, right? Make that a major event for the day. Set up the kitchen for a baking class and slowly teach your kids how to make their own little cake. Once it’s out of the oven, everyone can get creative and decorate it how they’d like.
Live Princess Chat and Storytime
The Princess Party Company is adapting for our virtual-only life right now. Their package options include an exciting 20-minute video chat, including storytime, getting to know the princess one-on-one, playing fun games, and simply connecting with your little one. Choose your favorite character—from Elsa and Tiana to Batman and Captain America, and more!
Caricature Artists
Available for Zoom parties, watch the artist live from their studio and see the drawing take shape in front of your eyes! All you need is an internet connection, and a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Most of their local artists average around 7-9 faces per hour. Book for as little as an hour and instantly receive your drawings via Dropbox.
Karaoke Party
For the extroverted performer birthday kid, a karaoke party could be just the trick to have fun with friends who are far away. Using your favorite video chat platform and a streaming platform like Watch2Gether, you can all watch the same karaoke music videos and take turns performing in the video chat.
Classic Sleepover
Send care packages to all party-goers ahead of time that include all the classic go-to’s: headband, facial masks, nail polish, scrunchies, microwave popcorn, and treats. Everyone can gather around the video chat while using their spa products. When it’s time for the inevitable movie, fire up Netflix Party so that everyone can watch and chat together like they normally would.
Playing Games
There are quite a few websites and apps out there there that allow kids to play multiplayer games live with each other. We’ve rounded up a list of free options (who doesn’t like free??), but there are plenty more that are available with subscriptions or one-time purchases. Coordinate a tournament for the highly competitive, or simply use the games as an activity to do together.
Cake Smash Livestream
For the kids that are hitting milestone birthdays, but might not remember them, a cake smash is always fun for the adult party guests. Invite family and friends to connect via video to watch your 1-year-old absolutely destroy a cake while everyone sings happy birthday. Certainly, a life event that won’t be forgotten.
Make a Silly Video
Platforms like Tiktok have given kids a new sense of creativity when it comes to making cool or funny videos. Make a video with the family with your kids’ favorite Tiktok meme. If they aren’t into the platform specifically, here’s a way to make a video with friends: have every party guest film themselves jumping in the air—once in their pjs and again in their fancy party clothes. You can then cut each of the videos together so it looks like they changed clothes magically when they jumped!
