Kids love Bugs!, it’s a popular theme for a kid’s party. Sometimes a child loves one bug in particular, in which case throw a Beetle, Butterfly or Ant party. Have a Happy Bee-Day!
Bug Party Invitation Wording
Creepy crawlies
Six legged creatures
Magnifying glasses to
See their features
Creep out your parents
Scare your teachers!
Bugs are strange and fun too!
This birthday invite is for you!
RSVP to “The Exterminator” or the “Entomologists”.
Bug Party Decorations
- Try “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” style decor… make giant blades of grass from green poster board/cardboard painted green and attach to the wall, or make giant leaves from poster board and make twisted long lengths of green paper/brown paper bag for vines.
- Astro turf can be bought cheaply and can be a nice touch with bugs strewn over it.
- Beautiful Butterflies can be made from folding coffee filter paper (painted with watercolours) accordian style and then securing with pipe cleaners (that then form the antennae). Instead of coffee filter paper you can use colourful magazine pages/construction paper, also, instead of using pipe cleaners you can make the butterflies with clothespins.
- Bug Antennae can be made easily using just pompoms, headbands and pipe cleaners.
- Make Bug Eyes from cutting off two of the “cups” in an egg carton, painting them and cutting out eye Holes. Attach string to the sides to wear on your face.
- A large spiderweb makes an impressive decoration (make it from string, yarn or crepe streamer). Or make the “web” between 2 large immobile objects (trees) and have the children navigate their way through. Make a giant star of radiating spokes and then weave circularly from the centre to the edges as a spider does!
- Inexpensive plastic bugs can be attached to the walls with bluetac or suspended from the ceiling with fishing line.
- Count out a large number of jellybeans and put in a large clear jar with a label … “Guess the bugs in the jar?”
- You can make lots of bugs out of foam shapes/pompoms and just add plastic googly eyes and stick them all over the walls.
- There are many ways to origami fold bugs from paper and they make attractive decorations.
- Make little “bite marks” out of the edge of paper plates and decorations (as if the bugs had taken a few bites).
- Make bugs out of balloons – use a combination of small, large and twisty balloons.
Bug Party Activities
- Play Crack the whip (but call it the Centipede game).
- Do something educational – quiz the kids about insects or have a spelling “bee” (with insect related questions)
- Stick a bug on their back and they have to mingle at the party asking questions of the other guests to figure out which bug they are.
- Read an Eric Carle book about books (Hungry Caterpillar, Grouchy Ladybug).
- Play the popular “cocoon game” (wrapping your teammate up in a roll of toilet paper as fast as possible.)
- Play a Bee Relay – talk to the children about the 3 things that bees collect (polleen,nectar and propolis) and then have the “bees” transfer as much of the “nectar” from the “flower” (flower decorated plastic plate) to the hive (plastic plate with a hive on it). You could use cheap hair gel/soap. They have to use their hands and transfer as much as possible. Do this outside as it is bound to get messy. (measure the amounts beforehand to make sure both teams have the same amount).
Have Bug Races:
- Caterpillar (all the children hold on to each other at the waist)
- Inchworm (they wiggle across the floor in an old sleeping bag)
- Spider (move in a crouching position facing the ceiling with both hands and feet on the floor)
- Pillbug (somersault race)
- Cockroach race (facing the floor with both hands and feet on the floor)
- Grasshopper race (jump and land with hands on floor and jump again).
- Have bug target practice… the children can use anything to “get the bugs” (silly string is a favourite though!)
- Hide rubber bugs around the house/yard and go on a bug hunt. (Or hunt for real bugs)
- Sing “Baby Bumblebee”, “The Ants go Marching”
- Dance to the “Flight of the Bumble bee”.
- Have a bug eating contest (without hands) bugs can be anything (chocolate chips are good).
- Pass the Bug (When the “flight of the Bumblebee” music stops you are “out” if you are holding the bug (soap the bug to make it slimey).
- Play the bug memory game. Display the bugs for a minute and then cover the bugs up and have the entomologists try to remember which bugs were there.
- Paint Ping Pong balls like bugs and try to bounce them into the target (maybe a bucket decorated with paper flowers).
- Hunt for snails and then race them (mark their shells so that you can remember who has which snail)
Bug Party Food
- Serve the favourites: Ants on a Log (Celery, peanut butter topped with raisins)
- Dirt cake/cupcakes with worms (frost the cake then crumble oreo cookie crumbs on top and place gummy worms in amongst the “dirt”.
- Put bugs on and around the food for a fun ick factor
- Freeze Plastic Bugs in the Ice Cubes
- Serve Butterfly pasta.