Space Parties are “Out-of-This-World!” You can have different styles of Space Party:
1. You can have an Aliens vs Earthlings type party
2. NASA astronaut style party
3. A party that is focused more on the Planets and stars
Space Invitation Wording
Let’s go to Jupiter and Mars
Visit the sun and cruise through the stars
It’s a birthday with lots of fun unfurled
This party will be out of this world!
Space Party Decorations
- Have the recipient of the invite RSVP to the “Space Commander”, write down the time using the 24 hour clock til the Launch/Blast-off /Splash down times.
- Give the address as a point on the globe with the latitude and longtitude.
- Tape blue/black plastic tablecloth on the walls and decorate them with stars. If you have glow-in-the-dark-stars or white stars with a black light even better.
- Add different coloured lightbulbs for an “other-worldly” glow.
- Make a rocket ship out of one appliance box (add a papercone to the top) add a funny round window . This is a great prop for a photo-op!
- Fill the helium balloons and send them to the ceiling with different lengths of curling ribbon attached. To the other end of the curling ribbon add a mylar star (or use whatever other material you have). The mylar stars will float in the breeze and sparkle.
- Go crazy with Bubble Wrap and Foil and wrap up some of your furniture/room … turning it into a Space Station/Mission Control !
- Planet decorations can be made by using different sizes and colours of balloons (use the long “twisting” balloons for the planets with rings).
- Making papier mache planets with your child in the weeks leading up to the party is great fun and educational but leave yourself enough time!
- Make one room dark and decorate with white christmas lights and glow-in-the-dark items, cover a small room’s floor with sheets (with pillows and soft items underneath for a “lunar surface”).
Space Costumes
- Disposable Tyvek “painter” suits can be purchased for not too much and make very cute “astronaut” suits (especially if you put NASA badges/stickers on them).
- Bicycle helmets covered in foil can look like astronaut helmets.
- Alternatively, have the children come dressed in green and with some head boppers and some green facepaint you have a party full of aliens.
- Some people have even made vests/costumes out of duct tape (a very ambitious project)
- A cute project is making “jet packs”. Attach 2 – 2 liter pop bottles to a cereal box and spray paint the whole thing silver (you can even add red/orange/yello crepe/streamers for “fire”) then secure 2 loops of sewing elastic/bungee for the arm-holes so that the pack can be worn. Attach a NASA symbol and you are done.
- If you are wildly ambitious you can make space helmets out of papier mache, tape a balloon in a bowl and use the balloon as a form. When you have a sufficient thickness of papier mache cut out a “window” and spray paint it white/silver. Start very early if you are going to attempt this one!
Space Party Activities
- Film canister rockets are always fun.
- Make alien antennae with pompoms and pipecleaners and plastic headbands.
- Have some frisbee contests (see how high, far, accurate you can throw).
- Consider a trip to the Planetarium (if you have one in your town).
- Have the children make aliens (use anything you have : toilet paper rolls, foil, pipe cleaners, nuts and bolts and buttons and other odds and ends.
- Get out the super soaker water guns and hit the targets (planets and aliens).
- Have an “aliens vs astronauts” tug of war.
- Blow up balloons and see how long the little astronauts can keep their space balloons aloft
- Dare to do something educational… quiz the partygoers about planets and the solar system (make them work for their candy!)
- Paint rocks silver and have the children search for the “Moon Rocks”, or use crumpled foil packages (add treats inside even!).
Make bottle rockets – Fill 2 liter pop bottle halfway with water and attach to a bicycle pump and pump away until the bottle rocket blasts off! (use eye protection and exercise caution).
- Have a “Space Fuel Relay” with 2 teams with an equal amount of cheap blue hair gel (measured with a kitchen scale) then the teams have to transport the “fuel” from one dish to another (on the other side of the yard) by any means possible! It’s hilarious -parents need to be warned to have the kids “dress for a mess”.
- Relays could be done with light objects such as marshmallows /cotton balls.
- Small Toys can be covered in baking soda paste that are later dropped into dishpans with vinegar … the soda fizzles away and they are left with the prize. (To make it more challenging have the children wear thick rubber gloves and use kitchen tongs).
- Make Waxpaper Planets. Have the child choose from an assortment of crayon shavings and place them on wax paper. Begin by sandwiching their chosen crayon shavings between a second layer of wax paper. Make sure you include a loop of string protruding from the “sandwich” for hanging. Then ever so carefully (with a paper towel and (perhaps some thin old cotton fabric on top of the paper towel) start to iron the stack of items until the crayon shavings melt …. be very careful as wax is flammable… this is a job only for a very coordinated adult. Hand the cooled crayon and wax paper “sandwich” to the child who then can cut it out (tell them to avoid cutting the string). Hang the works of art in the window and watch the colours glow!
Make “Moon Walkers”. Painted and decorated used tin cans with holes on either side near the unopened end of the can. Thread a rope through the holes and secure with rope knots inside the can. Stand on the closed end of the cans, hold the ropes and walk around!
- Play Command Robot. In teams of 2 – Have one blindfolded “robot” follow the instructions of the “commander” who puts the robot through his/her paces doing a series of jobs by explaining (fetching something in the room perhaps …. sounds easier than it is!)
- Obstacle races are fun… you could make the children manoeuver over and under different obstacles and spin in a chair (without getting too dizzy) and put things together with big rubber gloves on (simulating zero gravity).
- Play Space-y music : Major Tom (David Bowie), Mr Roboto, Star-Trek music, 2001 Space Odyssey, Star Wars.
Space Party Food
- Poprocks, star shaped cookies, Starburst Candies, Milky Way Bars, Moon Pies, Orbit gum are fun and in keeping with the theme, and don’t forget to serve Tang.
- For a moon cake, bake a cake in a bowl, and make “craters” with a buttered spoon, and use grey icing. For extra effect add an astronaut, space shuttle and small flag, don’t forget to have the “astronaut” leave a few footprints on the surface of the “moon”.
- Put a few drops of food colouring in the bottom of the cups and let it dry then add clear soda and watch it change into Alien Colours!
- Serve food in foil disposible trays.
- Make sandwiches and cut them out with star and moon shaped cookie cutters.
