Jungle Safari Birthday Party
My little guy turned 2 last year! For his 2nd birthday we had a Jungle Safari Birthday Party with a couple of his friends from the playgroup. He also had a Penguin Winter-land Party with family/friends out of state- you can see my post about it here.
For an invitation, I posted this adorable hippo on our playgroup’s calendar along with the following message:
Let’s party like animals!
Stampede starts at 10 am, swing in anytime after….
(Name) would love to have you celebrate with him as he turns 2! Come join him on a Jungle Safari Adventure and enjoy the following while you are there:
(List of foods & activities)
Get ready for some roaring fun!
My little man got to be King of the Jungle for the day! I bought him this lion birthday hat from Party City.
I decorated with green streamers hanging down in strips to make it feel more like a jungle atmosphere.
For the Jungle Safari-themed food, I made these fun labels and placed them next to the corresponding food item. I used a computer program I had to make the images (you could also use free clip art), cut them out, and glued them to card stock. Fold the card stock to make them stand up.
Here are the food ideas I came up with and put onto the labels:
- Monkey Bites = cut up bananas
- Snake Eyes = grapes
- Safari Sandwiches = ham & cheese sandwiches cut in the shape of animals
- Tiger Cakes = orange & white cupcakes striped with chocolate frosting (the kind that comes in package with a tip)
Other animal-themed food we had:
- Jungle Juice = green juice
- Cheeto’s
- Animal Crackers
- Animal-shaped Jello Jigglers
- It would also be cute to make dirt cake or dirt cake cups!
Jungle Juice
Hefty Zoo Pals 8-Ounce Cups With Lids
(Amazon Affiliate Link)
I bought Zoo Pals Plates & Cups from the grocery store. I like that the cups come with lids which is great for his age group!
Hefty Zoo Pals Plates
Hefty Zoo Pals 10-Ounce Bowls
(Amazon Affiliate links)
Animal Pals 50-Piece Cookie Cutter Set (Amazon Affiliate link)
I used animal-shaped cookie cutters (I bought a big container of them from Michael’s awhile back) to make Jello Jigglers. To make it more decorative, I placed tiny butterflies around the jigglers.
The kids also went on a Safari Hunt! I made homemade binoculars from 2 toilet paper rolls taped together. Before taping them together, I covered them with construction paper. I punched 2 holes on each side of one of the ends and strung yarn through. My little man decorated them with animal-shaped foam stickers. You could also let the kids decorate their own at the party.
Before the actual party day, my almost 2 year old helped me make Party Favor Bags to place the items from the Safari Hunt in. I had him decorate one side of a paper lunch bag with markers and the foam stickers. On the other side, I glued animal clip art.
I placed all the goodies/party favors around the little park area in our apartment complex. The kids had a blast looking through their binoculars to search for items to place in their bags.
The party favors for the hunt were:
- Tootsie pops
- Curious George fruit snacks
- growing foam animals
- animal-shaped rings
- mini animal figurines
- mini compasses
- color your own cardboard animal picture frames (see below)
- mini homemade coloring books (see below)
Decorate-Your-Own animal picture frames from Michaels
These Homemade Coloring Books are easy to make! I found free animal coloring pages on the Internet, saved them to my Desktop, and then printed them so that they were 3 1/2 x 5 in size. After they are all cut & separated, I made a cover for each using construction paper. Then, I punched to holes in each and tied the book shut with yarn. I printed the words “My Jungle Coloring Book” and added them to the cover along with animal stickers.
The kids also got one of these Handmade Animal Masks that I designed myself. Please see my previous post for instructions on how to make them.
The last party favor each kid got was a Handprint Safari Animal Keepsake. At the beginning of the party, the kids got to choose from making a handprint elephant, giraffe, or zebra. They each made a painted handprint which I then turned into the handprint animal that they chose. I did this at a later date and gave it back to them with their Thank You Card. I placed each handprint on scrapbook paper & card stock. I forgot to take pictures of the finished pieces- the above is an example of one that my friend was nice enough to send me a photo of!
I also made my son this Footprint Lion Keepsake (I forgot the tail!). For instructions on how to make it, please see this post from my other blog.
For other handprint & footprint animal ideas please see:
- footprint zebra,
- footprint zebra 2,
- another footprint lion,
- handprint zebra & giraffe, handprint tiger,
- different handprint giraffe & elephant.
We would love to connect with you in the places too!
Facebook – Google+ – Twitter – Instagram – Pinterest – Handprint Art blog
Wow! What a great party! You put so much work into that. I'll bet the kids had a great time.<br /><br />I love the animal hand print elephant.
What a creative birthday party idea!!! The crafts and extras really bring it together.
What a fun birthday! I am thinking about a Lady Bug theme for my Princess' 3rd bday next month.
Sounds like it was an amazing party! Thanks for sharing all of the great ideas.
So many cute ideas! I have to look for those plates and cups.