Cheap & Easy Lego Birthday Party

I recently hosted a Lego Playdate Birthday Party for my just-turned-five-year-old son, and thought I'd share the party plans and resources for anyone who may be interested in a similar party. 

INVITATIONS

I asked my son and daughter to create a Lego scene from their minifigures and toys.  This is what they came up with:

With a little bit of Photoshop magic, I put together this 5" x 7" invitation and printed them on white cardstock (they would have looked better professionally printed on photo paper, but I was short on time!) and sent them to school with my son.

Invitation Resources: Lego texture image, LegoThick Font

ACTIVITIES

I planned several games and activities that would work inside or outside.  We lucked out with good weather, so we held the party in our driveway and set the games and tables up into "stations".

Free Play with Blocks: I borrowed two giant buckets full of Duplo blocks from my sister-in-law and the boys had a great time just making their own creations and playing with the blocks.  I was surprised at how such a simple thing entertained them for so long!

Coloring Sheets:  I downloaded several Lego Movie coloring sheets as an emergency quiet activity, and was surprised when several of the boys migrated to that table completely unprompted!

Lego Movie Coloring Sheets: Download at Lego.com

Lego Toss: I used the top of a 4 ft plastic table, 6 blue paper plates (taped to the table to look like a Lego brick), and labeled the plates with points.  Then the kids each took turns tossing a Duplo blocks (bean bags would have worked better -- less bounce) trying to get the most points. The boys each did about 3 rounds of this, trying to perfect their toss.  I didn't give prizes...but you could. :)

Pin the Head on the Lego Man:

I used cardstock to made a paper-pieced version of this LegoMan coloring sheet from HappilyUprooted.com and glued it to a piece of cardboard. 

To make the heads, I started with this Lego Faces Printable image from blueflombingo.com, and adjusted the colors, sizes and layout in Photoshop to create this printable that would work better directly onto yellow cardstock and cut them out.

Each boy picked the face he liked best (they skipped over the girl faces), I blindfolded them with a scarf and turned them around 5 times each.  We ended up with a pretty silly looking Lego guy and the boys thought it was pretty entertaining.

Lego in a Spoon Relay:

Somehow, this particular group of 5-year-old boys didn't know much about how relay races work, so this game kind of fell apart.  But..we attempted it anyhow. 

What you need: Two wooden spoons, two duplo blocks, two teams and two chairs.

How to play: Each team tries to get all of their players around the chair and back without dropping the Duplo block, balancing it on the wooden spoon.

Build Your Own Race Car:

This was the big "finale" activity, and also served as the boys' party favors, since they got to take home their Lego Race Car creations and extra pieces. 

I ordered 8 race car "kits" made from used Legos on Ebay.  The seller, robertpack, worked with me to create a perfect kit for 8 kids, but essentially, it was one each of these three listings:

• 8 Lego Race Car Kits
• 1lb of random Lego pieces
• 8 race car driver Lego minifigures (This listing is just for a misc. Lego minifigure -- If you message robertpack and ask specifically about Race Car Drivers and he'll help price it out for you!)

Before the party, my husband and kids helped me divide the pieces out into "kits" which we put into ziplock bags for each boy (4 wheels, a bottom, a windshield, a driver, a seat, a steering wheel, lights, fins, etc.).  Then I put a bowl of all the extra pieces in the center of the table for "flair" and they got to work.

The boys had a blast building (with a little bit of help from the adults) their own completely unique cars that they then raced down an 8ft table set up as a ramp:

When we were finished, we put their cars and exta pieces back into the ziplock bags, labeled them with their names, and added a few pieces of candy to them to take home as favor bags.

FOOD

Five year old boys don't require much of anything fancy!  I could have themed all the food out, but frankly, you end up throwing a lot of it away and it takes so much time and energy to make all those cute Pinterest-y recipes and decorative foods.  I did feed them all lunch, but we kept it VERY simple:

• 1 Family Sized Papa Murphy's Take & Bake pizza
• 1 bag of Cheetos
• Lemonade & Apple Juice Boxes
• sliced strawberries

Cake:

I don't bake (at least not for presentation).  So, I went to the Target bakery the day before the party and picked out a pre-made and decorated sheet cake (it had some red, blue and yellow balloons on it). 

To personalize the top of the cake, I printed a simple banner onto yellow cardstock and taped it to two straws.  Then my son designed 5 of his Lego minifigures to run across the cake.  SOOO simple.

DECORATIONS

Eh...he was turning 5 and the party was outside, so I skipped the decorations almost entirely.  I did buy blue & red plates and yellow napkins from the Dollar Tree, as well as a single green star balloon for the mailbox.  But that was it.  So freeing.  So easy.  And decorations weren't missed AT ALL.

I estimate that in-all, I spent less than $120 on the whole party.  He and his friends had a fantastic time, and I wasn't stressed about planning it at all.  Not too shabby.