Dr. Seuss Party

Recently we threw a party for Dr. Seuss’ Birthday! We have celebrated his birthday in our family for the past decade and it has become a fun tradition that my kids all look forward to. Here is how we pulled it off using simple supplies, little expense, and not much time (as it was in the middle of the week on a school day). I also made some free printables that are free to download below. Hoping these ideas and printables can be fun for your kids too!

Decorations:

I made simple cutouts of Dr. Seuss’ silly fish out of colored poster board and hung them up all over our kitchen and dining area with clear fishing wire and push pins. We love how his fish sometimes walk, talk, or even end up in trees in his stories. I cut out some white ovals out of printer paper and used a black Sharpie to draw in some horseshoe shaped pupils to complete each fish. This was a very quick and inexpensive way to help set the scene in our main eating space.

I made a lot of banners. I really enjoy creating banners to coordinate with all my kids’ party themes. These decorations took little time and effort to put up but really made a big impact. The banners are best printed out onto white cardstock, cut, and hole punched on both sides at the top. You can use ribbon, twine, or any string really to hang. We chose white yarn to display our banner.

We turned the back side of a large cutout of BB-8 that my kids helped me to paint a few years ago for their Star Wars themed birthday into the Lorax. We have made numerous cutouts through the years. They are made out of particle board. I usually project the images and outline them with a Sharpie but this time, I just free handed the few details as I was going for a more simple looking version of the Lorax. He made a wonderful photo prop and we turned him into an easy game by cutting out some large moustaches out of yellow construction paper.

Here are my youngest two painting his orange fur. My kids always enjoy painting these larger than life cutouts.

This simple Seussville banner helped to create a quick backdrop for photos. We gathered some fun hats the kids already had along with new Thing 1 and Thing 2 hats they just made. My son who has been into origami lately, made paper swans out of construction paper as Swomee-Swans to help complete this space. For more details on the Thing hat craft, see below.

I wrapped pool noodles in yellow felt and added some pink plastic tablecloths on top to make large Truffula Trees. If you have yellow pool noodles, you could skip this step. I was just working with what I already had (green, blue, and purple pool noodles). I tied my husband’s black socks around to create the stripes. These decorations took about twenty minutes to put together and made for another inexpensive, easy, and fun backdrop for photos. My kids thought it was absolutely hilarious to use daddy’s socks to decorate. The Lorax moustaches we used to create our photo props is available to download below.

Again, it is just a hand drawn template that I made and is best used as a template to cut out onto yellow cardstock or poster board. The moustaches can then be either hot glued or taped to wooden skewers, chopstick, or straws and really make for an easy and fun party activity.

I created these Dr. Seuss inspired party signs and printed them onto white cardstock, using double sided tape to adhere them to our doors and walls. I labelled our bathroom Gluppity-Glupp after the sewage waste from the Once-ler’s factory. As we have one of those pull out/hidden trash cans in our kitchen that makes it hard for guests to locate, I labelled it as Schloppity-Schlopp. My kids thought the new names for our bathroom and garbage were so fun to say.

I decorated the space in the playroom with more printable banners using the Oh the Places You’ll Go as the predominant theme. I made a few simple hot air balloons by tying brown paper lunch bags to punch balloons. I added the names of two cities that were mentioned in Hop on Pop as well my son’s globe. My kids were so surprised that Constantinople and Timbuktu were actually real places.

Party Activities:

I laid out a craft table with a few activities.

Here are my daughters coloring and breaking into the crafts while I finish setting up.

I made a birthday cake coloring page and some bookmarks for kids to color. The coloring page is available here. The bookmarks are available here. They are both free for personal use. The kids enjoyed decorating a cake for Dr. Seuss. My kindergartener happily spent a half an hour here, drawing green eggs on her cake and adding some sparkly washi tape. I create more coloring pages here.

Here is little sister concentrating on decorating her bookmark. She may have tested her marker on the wall as well.

Here is my kindergartener’s creation and it makes my heart so happy!

I really liked these hats from The Joys of Boys and set up a similar invitation to make them for the kids. I made printable thing 1 and 2 cutouts but included numbers 1-12 so kids could choose their age if they liked. We cut up some straws and added pipe cleaners and stretchy strings so kids could either make necklaces and/or hats to wear.

I made a super easy Lorax popsicle stick puppet craft for the kids. This file is best printed out onto regular paper and used as a template to cut out onto colored construction paper to create a quick invitation to create for kids. I added googly eyes and yellow yarn, along with glue, tape, and scissors. Cutting yarn makes for great scissor practicie for kids and nothing beats making puppets to encourage wonderful pretend play. This activity could also be revisited for Earth Day.

I set up this easy invitation to write. The writing activity is available here. I create more writing activities here.

I used a large cup and spice jar lid to trace the outlines of white eggs and green yolks onto felt to create some new felt food for the kids. I also added a new sign in the Grinch font, as well as some tongs, spatulas, and themed colored plates, cups, and napkins to help bring the party theme into their play kitchen. The kids loved this and have spent many afternoons flipping green eggs to serve with ham.

I filled the bookshelves in my kids’ playroom with all of our Dr. Seuss books and anything remotely related to each story. For example, anatomy books and toy stethoscopes were placed next to Inside Your Outside, watering cans were placed next to Oh Say Can You Seed?, dinosaurs were placed next to Oh Say Can you Say Di-No-Saur? Finally, alphabet puzzles and toys were placed next to Dr. Seuss’s ABC book.

This is where the magic really happens though. I am a true believer in using book and toy rotations, continually editing and creating new themed spaces to captivate my kids’ attention and interests. The kids ended up making alphabet soup and green eggs for dinosaurs. The yarn I left out to make Lorax puppets became bowls and plates of poodle noodles. Several also gave the dinosaurs a check up while they waited for their food to be served.

I filled up the remaining space in their playroom with white balloons, writing the word who on the back of just one balloon. At the end of the night they had to search for the Whos on the “clover” and the winner received a book. My kids have since played this game many times, taking turns hiding the clover and have requested this every time we finish reading aloud Horton Hears a Who. Extending a story with simple book play like this really helps to nurture a love for reading.

My son helped me to prepare this simple Ring the Gack game. We wove some pool noodles through the vertical slats of an old chair then drew a simple version of the Gack onto yellow posterboard to tape onto it. More pool noodles bent into a circle and secured with clear packing tape became the rings. This activity took us about fifteen minutes to set up with supplies we already had on hand.

My kids used a red Sharpie to color in these inexpensive white foam cups to look like the Cat in the Hat’s hat. We stacked them all over the place for decoration and also for play. The kids enjoyed stacking them into towers and then trying to knock them all down.

Here is my oldest daughter helping to color in more cups. She may have gotten some red Sharpie on our white countertops but it is nothing a little magic eraser can’t fix.

We took our Christmas sleigh from storage and set up another easy game using more of my husband’s socks just rolled up as coal to toss and fill the Grinch’s sleigh. This simple activity was enjoyed by a wide age range and also would make a wonderful party activity around Christmas.

Food:

We served a lot of kid friendly homemade food as well as a few store bought goodies and of course we served green eggs and ham. The delicious ham recipe is from The Chunky Chef. My kids always enjoy helping me to come up with fun names for everything to coordinate with our party theme.

I made these Dr. Seuss inspired food tents that are free to download. This file is best printed out in landscape orientation onto white cardstock, cut in the middle and folded to create these food tents. Custom food tents are available here.

We love air popped popcorn and enjoy it every Friday for family movie nights. It takes only minutes to prepare and the kids love it. Sometimes we add food coloring to the melted butter to go with a theme or holiday.

Fruit at a party is always a good idea too.

Rather than labelling each Capri-sun and water bottle, I just made little signs to place in front of them. We had Moose Juice, Goose Juice, and Pink Ink. Pink ink was just one half gallon of raspberry sherbert mixed with six liters of ginger ale. The labels are free to download above for personal use.

Rather than adding eyeballs and moustaches to all our clementines, I just taped an extra moustache from the photo props to a clear trifle bowl and cut out some ovals out of printer paper for the Lorax’s eyes. Again, I used a black Sharpie to draw in his horseshoe shaped pupils. I was going for easy and quick as this was a midweek party.

My daughters helped me to place mini Swedish fish on top of blue Jell-O as a nod to One Fish Two Fish. I just followed the recipe on the Jell-O box. Jello is always a hit with my kids as it is a treat that they don’t have too often. As a bonus it takes only a few minutes to prepare and can be made ahead of time, ready to pull out on party day.

String cheese is also a favorite snack at our house that I like to include in parties as they can be prepared ahead of time and tied into any theme with just the use of a Sharpie. Leftovers also make for fun treats for their school lunches.

I used this recipe to make these delicious chocolate cupcakes. The frosting recipe is from Two Sisters Crafting. I just used a little green icing gel to color it and set up cookie straws and cotton candy for the kids to decorate/”plant” a Truffula tree. The sign is best printed out onto cardstock and just folded in half. The kids spent awhile making and eating their creations.

Here is little sister helping me to make the cupcakes. She always loves to help out in the kitchen.

To say the kids really enjoyed this would be a gross understatement!

We also served a hot cocoa bar. I used this recipe from Wishes and Dishes and added more cookie straws, cotton candy, some mini marshmallows, and Teddy Grahams (as Brown Bar-Ba-Loots).

I create more printable activities for kids here with the goal of helping to grow kids who love to learn.

To see my other kids’ parties click here.

If you use these printables or party ideas in your home or classroom, I would love to see it! Please use #sodangfun on social media, tag me @sodangfun on Instagram, or post to my Facebook page.

I hope this post inspires you to create something fun for and with your young readers!