Kids Party Ideas as Easy as ABCs
Guest post by Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs
It’s that time of year when kids are heading back to school and learning their ABCs and 123s. Alphabet and initial parties offer a unique birthday party theme for you to throw your child. Many people like this theme for a first birthday party. As long as you have some older children attending, up to 4 years of age, these activities will be fun and engaging.
Decorations
- Pick several primary colors as the color scheme of the party and go to town. Purchase helium balloons in these colors and have them all around the party room. Spell out the name of the birthday child and the party guests on the balloons. If you don’t have enough balloons, you can use initials only. You can give the balloons away to the kids at the end of the party to take home.
- For a table centerpiece, try and find big wooden ABC blocks and attach a few balloons to each of the wooden blocks.
- Cut out the letters of the alphabet, as many as you can, and post them all over the party room. Teacher resource stores will also have the alphabet letters already pre-made and you will just have to cut them out. Spell out alphabet signs to greet the guests when they arrive, i.e. “Elizabeth is Two! Hurray!”
Crafts

- Cut out letters of the alphabet and have the kids decorate them. Have pre-cut foam in the shape of alphabets and have the kids stamp their names on big sheets of paper.
- Provide kids with a white T-shirt with an iron-on alphabet letter for their initial. On the back of the shirt, have the kids make a handprint with wearable paint. This can be a part of the goodies they take home.
- Use wood block ABC’s as stamps, and have the kids make art creations with them. They could also make birthday cards for the birthday child with these same stamps.
- The kids can also make ID bracelets using alphabet beads.
Party Activities
- Hire a face painter to paint letters on the kids’ faces, and/or paint their names.
- Hold a book exchange. Have the guests bring a favorite book of theirs to give to another party guest. Have the kids sit in a circle, and play music, and let the kids pass their books around the circle. When the music stops, this is the book they get to keep! You could do this several times before stopping.
- Play charades, and have each kid act out a word that starts with a letter of the alphabet. So, if it is “B” ~ it could be for a bear ~ and the child can act out a bear and the other kids will have to figure out what he is.
- Make little alphabet letters and stick them all over the house on things that begin with that letter, i.e. G is for glass, so stick a “G” on glass, and have the kids find all of the letters and shout out the letter and what it stands for.
Menu
- Serve any type of sandwich you like, and cut them out with alphabet shapes.
- Serve alphabet cereal, little goldfish crackers, carrots, and fruit as additional snacks.
- Serve gelatin cut out in alphabet shapes in a variety of flavors.
- Bake sugar cookies and cut them out in different alphabet letters. You can ice them yourself, put them into clear cellophane bags, and tie with a pretty ribbon as a goody item or have the kids decorate the cookies and enjoy eating them right at the party as another activity.
- Serve Oreos on a Stick: place a Popsicle stick into an Oreo cookie, and dip the cookie into melted chocolate. Let it dry and then use an icing tube to write different letters on each one. This can also be a take-home goody, just wrap it in cellophane with a ribbon and add to the goody bag.
- Make regular cupcakes and frost them. Top them off with the letters of the alphabet. Spell out the birthday kid’s name.
Goody Bags
- Decorate a brown paper bag using the initials of each guest. You can do this with markers and/or stickers. Inside the bag include alphabet stickers, iron-on patches with their initials, Alphabet coloring books with a small box of crayons, magnetic letters, a wooden block with their initials, etc.