Sesame Street Birthday

My youngest recently turned two and we celebrated with a small but fun Sesame Street birthday party. This was the fourth Sesame Street birthday party that I have created for my kids and it was a bit bittersweet for me as it will likely be my last. There is just something about Elmo and all of his friends that has captivated all of my children around the age of two making it just a perfect theme for a toddler birthday. Here is how I pulled it off using simple supplies, little expense, and not much time. I also made some printable craft activities for my daughter as well as a few themed party printables that is free to download below as well. Hoping these ideas and printables can help your little one to enjoy some Sesame Street fun.

Decorations:

I purchased a pack of paper plates from Walmart and used painter’s tape to adhere the plates to the wall to create Elmo with our window as his mouth. This was a very quick and inexpensive way to help set the scene in our living room and really wowed my toddler.

Another inexpensive pack of colored paper plates enabled me to create a gigantic Big Bird to sit behind our couch. This was also quick and easy to achieve and my kids thought he was so neat.

I wanted it to appear as if the characters were peering into the windows of our home on Sesame Street so I created these large decorations on inexpensive poster board and hung them in between existing windows in our home. Here is Zoe waving hello.

Here is Abby Cadabby peering in through the window. My daughter loves wearing butterfly wings and pretending to fly so I knew I had to include Abby somewhere.

My mother who is a great seamstress, sewed some bright pillow covers for my kids a few years ago. These pillows have since served to help decorate many of their past birthdays simply by changing out the felt embellishments that have been affixed on top with hot glue. To make these pillows, I traced one of my kids’ round plastic bowls onto white felt and used spice jar lids to trace pupils onto black felt. I hand cut Oscar’s eyebrows and Ernie’s nose and hair out of more inexpensive felt and adhered everything to the pillows using my low temperature hot glue gun.

These gigantic balloons are actually air filled punch balloons that I found at the Dollar Tree for three for a dollar. I used cardstock and construction paper to hand cut Elmo, Oscar, and Bert’s eyes, eyebrows, and nose. My mom had sewn a fun paper circle garland for my son’s Sesame Street birthday when he turned two, seven years ago. We have moved several times since and in the process, the garland became damaged in several spots so I cut it up and used the pieces to create a fun balloon tail which my toddler loved to play with.

I also made Ernie and Abby Cadabby using the same process. They took little time and effort to create but made a big impact. My daughter just loved them.

I also created these super quick and inexpensive lamp posts from green pool noodles, green plastic bowls I had, and white balloons. I adhered the pool noodle to the bowl with hot glue and used white cotton balls to stuff around the white balloon so that it stayed secure at the top of the pool noodle. I then inserted a green chopstick to the side of the pool noodle and made some printable signs that are free to download below.

The printable for each activity is also free to download below.

These signs are best printed out onto cardstock and cut along the yellow border. I used a dab of hot glue to secure each sign to my chopstick so that I could insert them into the lamp posts. For the welcome and potty sign, I just cut them out and adhered them to the door with a little double sided tape.

Outside, I pulled out the large wooden cutouts I had previously made for sister’s Sesame Street birthday. I have made numerous cutouts through the years. They are made out of 4X8 feet long panels of particle board. I projected images of Elmo and his friends onto the boards and outlined them with a black Sharpie. My kids helped me to paint them and then they were cut out using a jigsaw. They make wonderful photo props and really help to set the scene outdoors. My kids always enjoy seeing how tall they are compared to all the characters.

Here is Elmo by our fence in the backyard waving hello. We ended up propping him by our front door to greet guests on party day.

My friend also gifted me this awesome sign which directed guests to parking.

I really love this image of the Count holding up two fingers for the birthday girl. My daughter still has trouble doing this and keeps telling everyone she just turned four. We are still working on number sense with her.

Here is Big Bird waving hi. Two years ago, he stood by sister’s sand table for a seed hunt.

Lastly, Ernie waving hello. For sister’s Sesame Street birthday, he stood by the water table that was filled with plastic rubber ducks.

Party Activities:

I wanted to create an inviting themed space for some open-ended play so finally decluttered our playroom shelves and filled all the nooks and crannies with all of my kids’ Sesame Street books and toys. Most of the items were either gifted or purchased inexpensively from the Dollar Tree. I tried to group similar playthings together for example Elmo’s Noisy Farm book with all of my kids’ farm toys and and their toy musical instruments with Elmo’s Band book. Of course nothing ever stays too organized for long in our house! I made the large Lily Street sign out of three pieces of green poster board, more yellow poster board, and large letters that I printed out onto white cardstock. It ended up being eight foot long, costing only five dollars to make, and really looked great in helping to transform her play space. Lastly I turned the kids’ beloved play kitchen into Chef Cookie’s kitchen decorating it with cardboard chocolate chip cookies that were adhered with painter’s tape. They liked taking the cookies off to pretend eat and bake.

I pulled out these sock puppets I made for big sister two years ago for her Sesame Street birthday. Ernie and Grover are made just out of spare socks. They have a cardboard mouth that is covered with felt. Their eyes are also made out of felt and their noses are just mini pom-poms. Everything was adhered using hot glue and these simple puppets have withstood a lot of play. I lucked out making Ernie as I found a Halloween sock that was orange and had black heels which was perfect in creating Ernie’s hair.

My kids love color by number and coloring in general. The birthday girl is still working on number recognition as well as learning her shapes and colors so I created this simple worksheet for her to practice these skills. I found big Sesame Street crayons at the Dollar Tree which paired perfectly with this printable. She was able to use her blue Cookie Monster crayon to color Cookie Monster and her red Elmo crayon to color Elmo.

I also created a lot of cut and paste crafts for party activities as the birthday girl really enjoys gluing and piecing together things. I love that she likes to make things and has so much pride in what she completes.

This file is best printed out onto cardstock, cut, and glued to form your Count clothespin puppet which is a fun tool to use to help your toddler work on strengthening the small muscles in their hands. When paired with counting clip cards, it is also a very engaging way to work on early numeracy. Each page will print eight puppets and there are cut lines that you can use to divide them and insert into goodie bags for guests to take home or to pass out to kids to complete. For a party with littles, I found it best to use the template to make cut outs onto construction paper and had everything set out on a tray ready for kids to assemble. The counting vegetables clip cards can be downloaded here for personal use.

This file is best printed out onto regular paper and then used as a template to trace onto construction paper. As construction paper is thin, you can cut through many layers at once to create an easy to set up craft for kids to complete.

This is what all the pieces look like all cut out and ready to assemble. You will need an extra half sheet of red construction paper to cover his body. Elmo’s arms are best glued between the layers of the paper bag and his legs work best glued to the upper layer of the paper bag. You may need to also trim a bit of the bag around his face if it shows. Puppets are a lovely way to exercise childrens’ imagination. They are also fun and inexpensive and have so many benefits from building motor skills to promoting language development and healthy social interaction.

This file is best printed out onto cardstock and will print eight to a page. There are cut lines that you can use to divide and pass out to kids. For my daughter’s party, I used this as a template and made cuts onto construction paper. I added popsicle sticks for the kids to glue their Oscar puppet on as well as toilet paper rolls for them to cover with aluminum foil. They loved making and playing with them. My daughter enjoys taking Oscar outside to watch her swing and also having him play peek-a-boo.

I made chocolate chip cookie bean bags out of felt in two shades of brown and filled them up with popcorn kernels fo the kids to feed Cookie Monster. They always enjoy a good bean bag toss and games in general. They also liked poking their heads into the hole, pretending they were being eaten by Cookie Monster.

These really were very simple and quick to make. I used inexpensive felt squares, popcorn kernels that didn’t really taste good when popped (but you can use beans or even rice instead), and adhered everything with hot glue. I placed the popcorn kernels in small bags and then used clear packaging tape to really tape them up to decrease the chance of having popcorn kernel explosions. I used my kids’ plastic bowls to trace circles onto the felt and my trusty sharp fabric scissor to cut them out. I then hot glued two circles together creating an opening just big enough for the bags of kernels to be inserted then sealed the opening with a little more hot glue. To finish, I cut out small squares out of a darker shade of brown to glue on as chocolate chips. My kids also love using these in their play kitchen and they have withstood a lot of play.

We also pinned the unibrow on Bert. I covered a large canvas with red felt, then hand cut the rest of Bert’s face out of felt. Everything is secured with hot glue. His unibrows are cut out of stiff black adhesive felt. My daughter thought this game was so funny.

I used my projector to trace a large number 2 onto cardboard to create this special pinata for my daughter.

This picture shows the general process of how I make these cardboard pinatas. The number two was cut out twice onto cardboard then strips of cardboard were taped to the sides. Everything was then covered with tissue paper and then again with crepe paper streamer using little glue sticks. The number two was covered in pink to represent Grover’s cape. My kids always enjoy helping me to make and fill these larger than life pinatas. As the cost of making these are minimal, we get to splurge on filling them. We filled ours with the birthday girl’s favorite candy treats as well as her favorite fruit snacks.

We made the Grover puppet together so she was proud to see him on her pinata. This puppet craft was more involved, requiring more instruction and guidance, so it wasn’t displayed as a party activity but the template is free to download below if you would like to try to make Super Grover with your kids.

This file is best printed out onto regular paper and used as a template to cut out of construction paper. You will need one extra half sheet of blue to cover the body of the paper bag as well as one extra half sheet of either pink or red for Grover’s cape. You will also need to round out the edges of the body and cut off a little of the upper sides of your pink paper to create a cape shape.

This is what all the pieces look like when you have them all ready and cut out. If you are working with a toddler, I would recommend having all the pieces precut and ready for them to glue on. This craft works best with the mouth glued to the body, the arms glued between the creases of the paper bag, and the legs glued to the side of the bag facing up. Also only the top part of the cape should be glued to allow it to flow when “flying.”

This is what he looks like when completed… ready to fly and be super! My toddler loved her Super Grover puppet and is now able to recognize the capital letter G thanks to him.

Food:

All this took was a package of string cheese, a fine tip Sharpie, and a little patience. If you can draw a straight… or semi-straight line and circles, then you can draw Bert. I always like to make something a little more special for the kids and this is one easy way to achieve this plus you can make this ahead and have one party food that is ready to just pull out on the day of the party.

I wanted to make alphabet soup (aka this chicken noodle soup recipe with alphabet pasta) but couldn’t find alphabet pasta anywhere so I cut carrots into letters. Thankfully the letters in my daughter’s name are very easy to create. I kept it doable by including lots of I’s and leaving out B’s, P’s, R’s… basically any letter that was too time consuming or difficult to create. My son was upset that he found a large F in his bowl l.o.l.

We served some of the birthday girl’s favorite snacks. We also made Abby’s Wands (these delicious egg rolls).

Of course we also had to make Sesame Chicken haha!

I doubled this recipe to make a simple chocolate cake. I used this recipe from Live Well Bake Often to make pumpkin cupcakes. Everything is covered in this delicious vanilla buttercream frosting from Two Sisters Crafting. I made some Sesame Street inspired cupcake toppers which are free to download below but ended up using them on our water bottles instead and printed out free clipart that I found of the characters’ faces to place on the cupcakes.

This file is best printed out onto cardstock and punched out using a 2 inch circle punch. They can be affixed to toothpicks or popsicle sticks to create cupcake toppers. I decided to wrap our water bottles with strips of pink polka dot cardstock I had, and adhered these circles on top with a bit of double sided scotch tape. They would also make great table confetti to scatter everywhere.

Favors:

Guests received a bag filled with goodies.

I found polka dot bags and party blowers at the Dollar Tree. The bags come in packages of ten and are available in all primary colors. I added Sesame Street stickers that I found here to make the bags and blowers coordinate with our theme. I included these tattoos and stampers as the birthday girl absolutely adores them. Guests also filled their bags with crafts they made as well as treats from the pinata.

Here is the birthday girl getting ready to open her presents with her sisters! My greatest joy in creating these parties for my children is seeing all their excitement. In the days leading up to my daughter’s birthday, she kept waking up and asking if it was her birthday yet. She also enjoyed walking around and looking at all the decorations and naming all the Sesame Street characters she saw.

Your child may also enjoy:

Busy Books

Playdough Mats

Letter and Number Formation Workbooks

Personalized Coloring Pages

Counting Clip Cards

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, I would love to see it! Please use #sodangfun on social media, tag me @sodangfun on Instagram, or email me.

I hope this post inspires you to create something fun with your toddler and also helps you to celebrate your young Sesame Street fan!