Hellobee

Lion absolutely loves karate, ninja turtles and ninjagos. So when it came to picking a birthday party theme this year, a ninja theme was an obvious choice. If your child is as interested in ninjas as Lion, here are a few ideas.

Happy 4th birthday, little Lion!

Venue

We looked into renting a party room at a park, in part because there is built-in activity with a playground. We weren’t sure whether it would rain, though, given the unpredictable nature of DC weather and the vast amount of rain we got this year. The typical birthday-party spots that we’ve been to were pretty expensive; while they take care of everything (decorations, activities, etc.), the total cost was more than twice what we budgeted for.

By chance, a month or so before we started planning, one of Lion’s classmates held a birthday party at a gym that also has a kids’ club (for parents to drop off their kids when they go work out). We looked into it and the price was perfect, plus we could do an add on for a personal trainer to teach a class for the kids. Even with this add-on, it still worked with our budget.

Invitations and Decorations

We found several ninja-themed electronic invitations on Evite and Paperless Post. We ended up going with Evite because it’s free and they had a cute animated invitation with three ninjas. Like Lion’s third birthday party, we invited only a handful of guests and checked in with the parents of his three best friends to make sure they could attend. Lion is pretty shy and there are a few kids in his class that have been a bit aggressive with him. While I generally want Lion to learn to get along with others and problem solve and I think it’s nice to invite the whole class, I ultimately wanted him to have a good time at his birthday. He invited seven friends (4 boys, 3 girls) and their siblings. Five of his friends (plus three siblings) were able to make it, so we had a total of ten kids including Lion and Panda which was a perfect size.

For decorations, I printed off a banner with a Ninjago print and created signs for each of the activity “stations” that had pictures of Ninjagos and ninja turtles.

Activities

The main activity was a “ninja skills” class, taught by one of the personal trainers at the gym. She taught them some karate skills, which several of the kids in his class were familiar with because some of them are also enrolled in karate at their school. This class was slated for about 30-45 minutes because, well, four-year-old attention spans.

For the rest of the party, we were responsible for the entertainment and I set up different activity stations for the kids to enjoy.

Because we already had quite a few Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ninjago and a series of ninja fairy tales, we purchased a couple of other ninja-themed picture books and set up a reading corner.

We used a portable cornhole that I picked up on Amazon Prime Day and folded some origami ninja stars for a “shuriken” throw. I drew some Ninjago figures on thick posterboard (thanks to YouTube — I am totally inept when it comes to drawing, but the tutorials were very helpful) to add to the theme.

Additionally, I printed off some Ninjago and Ninja Turtle coloring pages and brought some crayons and stickers for an art station. Lion and his friends are really into paper airplanes, so most of the pages ended up being folded into planes after they were done coloring.

One of the more popular activities for Lion and his two other Ninjago-loving friends was a “Build-your-own-ninjago-minifigure” station. I purchased a bunch of Ninjago minifigures, then separated them into different bins: heads, torsos, legs, mask/hair, and accessories. The kids could build their own minifigures, then put them in plastic bags and take them home as a party favor.

While every station was used during the party, to be honest I probably could’ve gotten away with no activities because the kids’ club had so many toys. Because most of the kids had never been there before, they really enjoyed all the toys and games that were left out, including a basketball hoop, superheroes, dolls, cars and more.

Party Favors

We purchased some Chinese takeout boxes in several colors and drew eyes on yellow cardstock to make the boxes look like Ninjagos. Inside the boxes, we included some of Lion’s favorite Japanese rice crackers, a mask, a ninja rubber ducky, Ninja Turtle stickers and a couple origami ninja stars.

Ninjago party favor boxes.

Lion enjoyed his party, sharing the day with a few of his closest friends.  The next morning, he was eating his breakfast and out of the blue said, “Thank you for my birthday, Mama! I had a really good birthday party!”