Superhero Birthday Party

My oldest recently turned ten and we celebrated with a superhero themed birthday party at home. This was his third superhero themed party. He had one when he turned four and then again when he turned seven. My son just loves this theme. Here is how we pulled it off using simple supplies, little expense, and not much time (as his little sister’s birthday was just four days away). I also made some printable superhero masks and food labels that are free to download below. Hoping these ideas and printables can be fun for your kids too!

Decorations:

I purchased a pack of paper plates from Walmart and used painter’s tape to adhere the plates to the wall to create Captain America adding some simple detail with white poster board. This was a very quick and inexpensive way to help set the scene in our living room.

Another inexpensive pack of colored paper plates enabled me to create a gigantic Hulk around our other window. This took less than fifteen minutes with my kids helping me to roll the tape so that it was double sided.

I used my son’s old costume and stuffed it with pool noodles to help decorate our kitchen. A large red punch balloon served as Spidey’s head. Smaller balloons formed his feet and red cardstock formed his hands. I created simple large webs out of yarn. My son wanted it to appear as if Spidey was shooting webs from his wrists. We covered a mix of boxes with wrapping paper and added yellow post-it notes to create buildings. Lastly I printed out some comic words and hung up spider web doilies we had purchased for Halloween.

Since we celebrated little sister’s third birthday a week before, we reused the Peppa Pig house decoration and turned it into superhero buildings. The buildings are just red and yellow plastic tablecloths secured with push pins. The windows were made out of a mix of poster board and construction paper. I added a few comic words and some of my son’s Spidey things to complete the space.

My son had so many fun ideas! He has really grown with his creativity. He thought it would be neat to either have Superman use his freeze breath or heat vision. As he also wanted to feature the villain Jack O’ Lantern on his cake, we decided to go with heat. He actually wore this Superman costume when he was four not only on his birthday but everywhere around the community. We stuffed it with pool noodles, added a red plastic tablecloth as a cape and used red crepe paper streamers projecting from his eyes. I made the banner of flames for him. It is available here and would also work for a fireman themed or even Paw Patrol birthday. 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. My husband said it was one of his favorite decorations ever.

I created these superhero party signs. They are available here. I printed them onto white cardstock and cut around the blue border of the burst and used double sided tape to adhere them to our doors and wall. They could also be just printed out onto cardstock and hung up as is.

The kids helped me to paint a few large wooden cutouts. We have made numerous cutouts through the years. They are made out of 4X8 feet long panels of particle board. I projected images of Hulk, Captain America, and Spidey onto the boards and outlined them with a black Sharpie. My kids helped me to paint them and then my husband cut them out using a jigsaw. They make wonderful photo props and really help to set the scene. My kids always enjoy seeing how tall they are compared to all the characters.

Here is the birthday boy painting Spiderman. He also painted the large Hulk pictured at the end of this post.

Here is little sister posing in front of Captain America. We ended up propping him up in our backyard on party day to create a target practice game with foam dart finger shooters from the Dollar Tree. It was a really great activity for this age group of 10 year old friends.

Party Activities:

I filled the bookshelves in the playroom with all of my son’s superhero books and toys. I reused the clouds from sister’s recent Peppa Pig party and added more superhero buildings (made from our recyclables). I laid out a craft table with three activities and decorated the space with more comic words as well as large silhouettes of Ghost Spider and Iron Man. Here are the birthday boy’s sisters coloring and breaking into the crafts before the party starts.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that a group of 10 year old kids still love imaginative play and had fun watching them grab toys out of the cubicles to jump off buildings, fly, and zoom off to fight evil.

I found free clipart here and here and projected the images of Ghost Spider and Iron Man onto black poster board, cut them out and used scotch tape to secure them to the window to create these silhouettes. I then covered everything in white tissue paper.

This is what Ghost Spider looked like at night from the street.

This is how Iron Man appeared after dark outside our home. These silhouettes made for great Halloween decorations as well.

I found free coloring pages here and set up a little area inviting the kids to color.

I also used one of the Spiderman images from here and made this coloring page which also doubled as a counting mat for his little sister. I create more coloring pages here and more math activities here.

I used my projector to make a few large coloring pages for the kids.

Here is the Flash. I purchased these white poster boards inexpensively from Walmart and used some Command poster strips to secure them to the wall. This allowed me to make use of the large wall space in our hallway for another easy to set up activity for the kids. I created a similar setup last year for my daughter’s L.O.L. birthday party.

Little sister really put a lot of focus into Green Lantern’s ring.

Shown here is my oldest daughter coloring Wolverine.

A silhouette of Wolverine also greeted guests at the door.

I printed and put together a bunch of blank comic books for the kids as another easy to set up activity. I made this template two years ago but the kids still love it and ask me to print this out often. Sometimes I don’t print it out fast enough, and they will just take blank paper, fold it in half and draw in their own squares and lines. Creating their own comics and stories is an activity that they often enjoy after school. Sometimes they take characters from books they have read and create new adventures for them and other times, they make up their own characters, or even place themselves in their stories. The printable comic books are available here. I included a variety of designs as my youngest writers often need all the dotted lines to keep their words straight whereas my son prefers no lines. Also sometimes they want speech bubbles and other times they prefer to draw in their own.

I made some simple superhero masks templates for the kids to color and create. This file is best printed out onto white cardstock, colored, cut out and hole punched at the sides to use with elastic string. Here is sister adding more details to her Spidey mask. My kids loved these masks and even used them for Halloween.

Here is little sister wearing a Flash mask. I actually paired this with a red sweater to go trick or treating with my kids.

Here, sisters are wearing their Ghost Spider and Wonder Woman masks. If you look closely, you can see Spidey and Thor’s silhouette in the background as well as our Hulk hiding behind the tree.

Here is how Spidey looked in the dark.

We had a photo booth. I made some fun photo props that are available here. We grabbed some of my son’s many superhero masks as well as some new paper masks that the kids had colored and this became another simple and fun activity.

His sisters helped me to bake Batman cookies. I purchased these Batman cutters for his seventh birthday. Decorating cookies is always a hit and setting up this activity was as simple as setting out yellow buttercream frosting, these batarang cookies, along with some paper plates, plastic knives, and a few sprinkles, and letting the kids just go to town.

Here is his youngest sister helping out as well. We used this same recipe from allrecipes to make her Peppa Pig cookies a week before so she kept sniffing the dough and remarking how they smelled just like Peppa cookies.

We brought out this lego Batman that we had painted for my son’s seventh birthday. It was used as a pin the bat on Batman game then but for this group of ten year old friends, we just paired it with his massive collection of Legos. Legos is always a wonderful activity to include in a home party for this age group.

My son wanted a pinata of Metallo with his heart of Kryptonite. When my son was young, he loved the story of Superman vs Metallo as it showed that even though Superman was born with all of these amazing powers, he still was unable to defeat Metallo on his own but needed the help of his friend, Batman. Batman has long been a favorite superhero of ours as he is almost the exact opposite of Superman, being born without any special powers, having to train his mind and body through hard word and determination to become super.

We made this simple pinata together from cardboard and silver tissue paper, gluing on some black yarn and green posterboard for detail. 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 boy’s favorite candy treats as well as some sour candy too for his sisters and friends.

As my son’s birthday is in the middle of fall, we like to include seasonal activities which he enjoys. This setup was as easy as placing a bunch of pumpkins 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 party activity for any fall birthday, no matter what the theme is.

Food:

We served a lot of kid friendly homemade food as well as a few store bought favorites. My kids always enjoy helping me to come up with fun names for everything to coordinate with our party theme. My son’s favorite food is orange chicken so we ordered a party tray from a local restaurant and called them Dr. Octopus’ Orange Chicken. Electro’s Egg Rolls were traditional Vietnamese egg rolls that we make for all our parties. The recipe handed down from my mom can be found here.

I made these comic 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 had a super nacho bar. We purchased queso from a local restaurant and included all the fixings. The super nacho bar sign is available here.

Here are Daredevil Eggs which is always a party favorite.

I followed this recipe to make Kryptonite. We made these for my son’s previous superhero birthdays and it is always a hit. 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.

I used edible food markers to make Green Lantern’s symbol as well as Ghost Spider eyes on these super fruit skewers. The kids really loved these and they took little time to assemble with my kids helping.

I used this recipe from Natasha’s Kitchen to make his pumpkin cake. I frosted it with vanilla buttercream and made fondant using this recipe from Wilton to add more details. My son was Jack O’Lantern for Halloween and requested to have him on top of his cake. Everything pictured is edible except for the cake board and the Funko Pop Superman.

I used this recipe from Tastes of Lizzy T to make strawberry cupcakes. Everything was covered in this delicious vanilla buttercream frosting from Two Sisters Crafting. I found free clipart from various sites and sized them to make these cupcake toppers.

Favors:

Guests received a bag filled with goodies.

I purchased plain white bags from Amazon and made these simple bag labels that are available here. We included a blank comic book, small pumpkin, and ring pop with each one. Guests also filled their bags with crafts they made as well as treats from the pinata.

Here is the birthday boy posing with some of his favorite presents… more Legos and books! My greatest joy in creating these parties for my children is seeing all their excitement and happiness. My son has long been fascinated with superheroes and comics. I feel it has helped him to mature into an incredible reader as well as an all around amazing boy.

I also wanted to dedicate this post to my late cousin who recently passed. Star Smith was my baby cousin and also a big fan of Wonder Woman and themed parties in general. This is a photo of us at my son’s first superhero party (when he turned four). She was so much healthier then revealing how a lot can change in just a few years.

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 post to my Facebook page.

I hope this post inspires you to create something fun for and with your superhero fan and also remind you to take some time to celebrate the everyday, doing more of what you love with those who are most amazing to you.