Patriotic Party
Recently we hosted a party to celebrate our nation’s 249th birthday. Here is how we pulled it off using simple supplies, little expense, and not much time. I also made some patriotic party printables that are free to download below. They could be used for any patriotic holiday (Labor Day, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, or the Fourth). Hoping these ideas can be useful and fun for your family or classroom as well!
Decorations:
Inexpensive paper plates from Walmart and painter’s tape was used to create this easy and quick backdrop in minutes. I made a star template that is best printed out onto white cardstock, cut, and taped to blue paper plates. It is free to download below. It comes in two patterns and two sizes (plain white and red/white gingham, small and large).
In my small eating area in the kitchen, I cut out the silhouette of the United States mainland and some gingham stars. I just taped them to the wall alternating them to create an ABAB pattern. This took less than fifteen minutes with my kids helping me to roll the tape so that it was double sided. The beautiful flag dish shown was created by Pacific Northwest glass artist Terri Shinners and was graciously gifted to us for the Fourth.
I made several balloon banners. Balloon banners always add a lot of fun to a space and are not at all difficult to create. We use this balloon tape from Walmart. My kids help me to blow up an assortment of red, white, and blue balloons. Once we are satisfied with the the placement of everything, we taped on white stars using assorted sizes. The larger size printable stars can be downloaded below. The Fourth of July banner can be downloaded here.
Here is the balloon garland we hung up in our living room. This time I added a few silhouettes for the US mainland instead of stars. The silhouettes can be found here.
I made some patriotic bunting. They come in two patterns. You just print onto white cardstock, cut or fold in half (if you want them double sided) and hang with ribbon, yarn, or twine. My son said it looked like the American flag and a watermelon had a baby. The bunting is available here and would work for any Americana themed celebration. I really enjoy creating banners to coordinate with all my kids’ party themes. Banners are a really quick and easy way to make a space festive.
In the kitchen, I strung up this patriotic bunting with a red and white gingham pattern. I displayed some photos from past Fourth of July celebrations. My kids also helped me to make these patriotic wands which we just stuck into our potted plants to further make our space even more festive.
We just used a mix of patriotic ribbons we purchased from the Dollar Tree and this printable I made previously here. It is best printed out onto white cardstock, given to kids to cut and tape onto wooden dowels, tying on ribbons as desired. My kids enjoyed parading around with them as well.
We made suncatchers using star shaped paper plates from the Dollar Tree. I cut out the center, covered them in clear contact paper, and my kids went to town decorating them with cut up pieces of red and blue tissue paper. They also added cut up aluminum foil for extra sparkle.
It was fun to see all the different designs they made with them and they were all so proud to see them displayed in our windows.
The kids helped me to paint some toilet paper roll fireworks and we decorated our artificial white tree with them. We leave this tree in the kids’ playroom year round and enjoy decorating it for all the holidays. My youngest also loves to wear her Christmas PJs all year long.
We used a serrated knife and cut pool noodles into 9 inch segments (similar to how we made these pool noodle carrots for Easter). We wrapped a pipe cleaner around some cut up tinsel garland leftover from Christmas and inserted them into the pool noodles. Lastly my oldest daughter, who has become really comfortable with the hot glue gun, glued foam stars we found at the Dollar Tree. We placed wooden chopsticks into the ground in both our front and back yard and inserted these pool noodle fireworks on top. They were super easy and quick to create and added a lot of fun to our yard.
We pulled out the large Captain America we painted for my son’s previous superhero birthday. We have made numerous cutouts through the years. They are made out of 4X8 feet long panels of particle board. I project images onto the boards and outline them with a black Sharpie. My kids help me to paint them and then they are cut out using a jigsaw. They make wonderful photo props and really help to set the scene. My kids always enjoy posing with them.
Party Activities:
I filled the bookshelves in the living room with all of my kids’ books about America for kids to pull out and read as they wished. I laid out a craft table with three activities (more details on each activity below). Here is my middle daughter and her friend coloring and breaking into the party crafts.
The kids made patriotic hats. I just set out a tray of crayons, markers, star stickers, and gems and the kids went to town decorating their hats. The printable hats are available here. For the party, I precut and glued the bands to the hats. After kids finished decorating their hats, they just measured their heads and stapled to close.
They all did such a great job with them!
I printed out some coloring pages that I had previously made and set up a little area inviting the kids to color. The cute star and stripes and happy grill coloring page is free to download here.
The USA birthday cake is available for free download here.
I filled a tray with a mix of pony beads, and uncooked penne pasta that we dyed red, white, and blue. I also purchased these patriotic charms and printed out these patriotic cutouts for kids to create their own patriotic jewelry. I included elastic string and scissors as well as pipe cleaners for the younger kids to thread.
I purchased these patriotic tattoos. There was a good mix of patriotic themed images, mostly for the Fourth of July but there were a few for Veterans Day that I will be saving. Temporary tattoos are always an inexpensive low prep activity that the kids always enjoy.
The kids made eagle paper bag puppets. I made a free template that is available to download above. The file is best printed out, used as a template to cut out onto construction paper, and paired with brown paper bags and white coffee filters. You will need to cut out the eye and foot twice. I recommend using good scissors and cut through a whole pile of construction paper at once to make for a quick and easy setup.
Here is my daughter flying her eagle puppet. She added eyelashes and lipstick to her eagle as well as a dress and some jewelry.
The kids helped me to bake star shaped sugar cookies. Decorating sugar cookies is always a hit and setting up this activity was as simple as setting out vanilla buttercream frosting along with some paper plates, plastic knives, and a few sprinkles, and letting the kids just go to town. I always use this recipe from Allrecipes for the sugar cookies and this recipe from Two Sisters for the vanilla buttercream frosting.
We brought out all the kids’ Legos and I just added a simple sign to invited kids to make a Lego flag. I pulled out as many rectangular base plates that I could find for kids to build on. Legos is always a wonderful activity to include in a home party for kids.
I really enjoy changing up my kids’ play kitchen for different holidays and themes. I made a simple menu that is free to download above. We included pretend hot dogs, patriotic donuts, ice cream in baseball helmets and red and blue freezer pops. Pretend hot dogs that my kids colored and cut out can be found here. The ice cream scoops are fake snowballs from Christmas. We found the fun baseball helmets at the Dollar Tree. Freezer pops were cut up red and blue pool noodles.
We reused the container leftover from our Costco croissants and filled them with white cup up pool noodles. My kids stuck star stickers to them to create these patriotic donuts. More dramatic play setups can be found here.
Outside, I put up two craft tables for messier crafts. On one table I put a bucket of air-dry clay, some rolling pins and cookie cutters and invited kids to make their own patriotic memento. They also were welcomed to grab items from the patriotic sensory bin to include in their creations.
For the patriotic sensory bin, I just filled my kids’ sand table up with rice dyed red, adding blue gems and toys and finally, white seashells for stripes.
This setup was as easy as placing a bunch of toilet paper roll fireworks on a table outdoors, and including some paints, brushes, and aprons for the kids to create with. This activity was also enjoyed by a wide age range making it a wonderful and inexpensive party activity. I found these great stay put striped plastic tablecloths at Walmart and they were so quick to put on and didn’t fly away. I had to purchase more to save for future parties.
The kids used our sidewalk chalk and made a fun obstacle course using what we already had outside. I love how creative they were and they were so proud of it!
We filled a water table up with red, white, and blue flowers and added some soup bowls, measuring cups, and ladles for the kids to make patriotic flower soup. This was completely free and well loved by kids of all ages!
I pulled out an old cornhole game we made previously for my son’s baseball team party and we used sister’s Squishmallow popcorn to throw.
Food:
My kids helped me to make a variety of easy red, white, and blue treats. We had chocolate covered Oreos, chocolate covered pretzels, and brownie bites. I also made a quick flag charcuterie board using a cookie sheet and square container. Here is my husband with his beer ready to dig in.
Pictures really can be deceiving. This looks like they are all hard at work but in reality they were just all taste testing and cleaning my melting pot!
The brownie bites were made at my youngest’s request. She found them at our local grocery store bakery and I told her we had everything to make them already at home.
We served Costco hot dogs (which I had to cut down to size to fit the buns) as well as some white hot dogs we found at Fred Meyers. I used this recipe to make chili that could be served poured on top of the hot dogs. We also served twice baked potatoes and deviled eggs but they were all devoured before I could get a proper picture.
We had a nacho bar. I used the recipe from The Cookie Rookie to make crockpot queso and included all the fixings. The nacho bar sign is available here.
We served root beer floats. I love using this dispenser to serve drinks at parties as there is an inner core you fill with ice that keeps the drink cold and guests can easily serve themselves. For our large party, we used two 1.5 quart containers of vanilla ice cream and three two liter bottles of root beer. During the party, I refilled it twice more with root beer. I always purchase 9 oz drink cups as I find this size is perfect for kids. The root beer float sign is available here.
We opted not to have fireworks at our party. We had a lunch time gathering so people could leave before dark. At night, we just pulled up some lawn chairs and enjoyed watching our neighbors’ firework shows from our front yard and boy did they not disappoint!
You may also be interested in:
Veterans Day Thank You Cards and Gift Tags
Captain America Printable Mask to Color
Memorial Day Crafts and Coloring
Military Toilet Paper Roll Puppet Craft
I create more printable activities for kids here.
To see my other parties click here.
If you use these printables or party ideas, 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 can be helpful to you in planning your patriotic celebrations!
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