Beach Party - For Kids' Summer Birthdays

Not everyone is lucky enough to live beside the beach. Children and adults alike dream of playing the warm sands, building sand castles in the bright sunshine, and getting sand between their toes.

If you have a young child with a summer birthday and a home with a lawn, you can make their beach party dream come true by throwing a party for their young friends that includes sand, sun, water and the fun of building sand castles. It can be as elaborate or as simple as you wish.

Start collecting!

Well before the party, begin collecting plastic containers of various sizes such as small food containers, caps to various safe household products, any object that could be used to mold wet sand into a sand castle. Cups and small plastic drinking glasses work very well also. The more different sizes and shapes you can find, the better. If you have small plastic serving trays for using as the base on which to create the sand castle, the castle will be moveable. But children love creating even if it is done on the grass or ground.

Dress Code

When creating invitations or telling the other parents about the party, request that children wear swimming attire or shorts and tops that can the parents won't mind getting sandy and wet. You might want to let them know that there will be no actual swimming involved so they don't worry if their child doesn't swim yet. They can provide a change of dry clothing for returning home if they wish to prevent potential chills or summer colds.

Creating the Beach Scene

Bags of playground sand can be purchased at any lawn and garden supply shop, or at your local super store. Huge bags are quite inexpensive. Fill an inexpensive child's blow-up swimming pool with the sand to create the 'beach'. If you happen to have a sand box for your child, that will become the beach.

Gather seashells whether you find them or purchase a basket of them. These will be treasures to find in the sand and take home as party favors for the children. Choose shells of various sizes but avoid any that are so small they will be lost in the grass and become projectiles when the grass is later mowed.

For adults, be sure to have an umbrella or other area that will provide shade while children play in the sunshine. Sunscreen for both children and adults will prevent sunburns.

Birthday Cake

The birthday cake can be designed on an ocean, castle or seashell theme and fit well with the party. Choose the design your child would most prefer. If you choose to create the cake at home, pretty paper umbrellas used to decorate fancy cockatiels make nice cake decorations and water designs can easily be created by tinting frosting blue and creating 'waves' with a knife. Use frosting on part of the cake to represent the ocean and the other section tan to represent sand, placing umbrellas along the 'beach'. Plastic beach decorations can be added if you wish or shell shaped candles. Display the cake using extra seashells around the base near, but not touching, the cake.

What to do When

Serve food and drinks on beach theme paper plates and cups. These are easy to find during the summer in any party supply store.

Because sand castle building will get sand everywhere, begin rather than end the party with cake and gifts. This way the children will be ready to get sandy. This is also the time to play any games you have planned.

Games & Activities

Building Sand Castles: Once the children are ready to build their sand castles, provide the plastic molds, spoons, dishpans of water for wetting sand and explain to the children how to build a castle. Then, let them go have fun. After the castles have been built, award small prizes for the best castles.

Don't be afraid to get into the fun and build a castle yourself. It's great fun and you can help the smaller children build their dream castles. Explain to the children that sand castles wash away in the tide and can not be taken home. You may even want to let the children wash the castles away with the garden hose.

An Outdoor Shower: Have the garden hose ready unless you have an outdoor shower. This will let children get wet and remove sand before entering the house to use the restroom or when they are ready to stop playing in the sand. Have plenty of clean towels on hand for drying wet children.

Post party Clean-Up

Post-party sand clean-up outdoors is easy. Simply hose all sand that is outside the sand area into the grass. It will not harm your lawn in any way. The sand remaining can be used in landscaping or you can leave it for your child to enjoy.