Posted by Nicole Carney on Oct 24, 2014 in Birthday Theme Parties, Superheroes | 0 comments

Both of my bugs are REALLY into superheroes right now. M’s favourite superhero is Captain America, while B’s is the Hulk. My boys race around, in character, for a good chunk of the day, pretending to fight bad guys and smash stuff. Let’s just say my days are not boring… or quiet (*sigh*). Although it can be a bit overwhelming trying to reel them in when they are pretending to swing from spiderwebs while shopping at Costco, I can’t help but smile at their care-free, imaginative play.

When it came to planning M’s 5th birthday party, I knew I would have no trouble coming up with things for the kids to do; the real challenge was going to be knowing how much was too much! I had A LOT of fun planning M’s Superhero-in-Training party, and I think the guests enjoyed being a part of it. I know M and B had a blast because they both asked if they could ‘go to the superhero party again’ the next day.

Here are some of the highlights from M’s Superhero party, along with links to free printables, just in case you have your own little superhero at home!

Superhero-in-Training Activities:

We had invited quite a few of M’s friends to his party, so I figured it would be fun to set up some superhero-in-training centres. We had 7 centres in all and, after completing each one, the kids collected a badge (superhero sticker) that matched the centre they were in. After visiting each centre, and collecting all of their stickers/badges, the kids were given a superhero cookie medal.

I found most of my free printables for the superhero stickers, large emblems, and superhero pictures here. Isn’t the Internet wonderful?!

Hidden Identity!

At this centre, the kids had to create a disguise by decorating their own cape and mask. You can see how I made the capes and masks here.

I had a craft table set up with pre-cut felt capes and masks, as well as everything the kids would need to create their own personalized superhero disguises!

When they were finished creating their disguises, the incognito superheroes collected a Batman badge/sticker, and then had their photo taken while flying over a city skyline! I created the city skyline using an orange, plastic table cloth and buildings I had cut out of black poster paper. We also had some fun polaroid cameras our guests could use to snap a photo of their little superhero(es) in action!

City skyline photo-op made from an orange table cloth and poster paper.

HULK SMASH!

The kids had to pop one green balloon and one purple balloon in order to earn a prize and their Hulk badge/Sticker. This was a fun, but very loud, centre!

Lasso the Bad Guys!

In order to earn their Wonder Woman badge, the kids had to lasso the bad guys by encircling the bop-bags with 2 hula hoops. I just realized I spelled ‘hula’ wrong on my sign! GHA!

Leaping and Jumping!

My bugs helped me by painting some boxes black and sticking on yellow construction paper windows to create ‘buildings’. The goal of this centre was for the kids to jump over the buildings without landing on them, but it ended up being much more fun to stack the buildings and smash them down! Hahaha!

Web Shooting!

For the web shooting centre, I printed off a bunch of villains from the Spiderman cartoon and taped them to a red, plastic table cloth. I also interspersed some pictures of superheroes amongst the villains, to make it a bit more challenging. I had a bucket full of silly string for the kids to use as spider webs so they could entangle the bad guys!

I purchased some cans of silly string from the Dollar Store and taped a Spider Web label around them, which you can find here.

This was by far the most popular centre! The kids loved it! I bought 15 cans of silly string, and they diligently emptied each one!

Flying Practice

The kids earned their Thor badge by practising their take-off and landing skills in the bouncy house. Of course, no capes or shoes were allowed. Safety first!

Captain America Shield Toss

For this centre, the kids had to aim and throw their ‘shields’ (frisbees) into the star bins.

When the kids had finished each centre and collected all 7 of their badges, they were rewarded with a superhero cookie medal! I made these by wrapping chocolate chip cookies in plastic wrap, taping a red ribbon to the back side, and adding a sparkly foam star sticker to the front.

In this picture of M and I, you can see what the cookie medals looked like.

Superhero Food

For lunch we had a SuperHERO sandwich bar, so our guests could build their sandwiches how they liked. We also had red and black licorice (Wonder Woman’s lassos) and a fruit and yogurt platter that resembled Captain America’s shield.

In addition, we served veggies and dip, chips, popcorn, and refreshments. I completely forgot to take a picture of the food table and of the cupcakes! Here are the Superhero Party Food Labels I made, and I used the same printables I used for the badges/stickers in the centres for the cupcake toppers as well.

All-in-all it was a very busy, but incredibly fun day! All of the prep work that went into this party was definitely worth it after seeing the SUPER SIZED smiles on those little superheroes’ faces!