Toy Story Themed Birthday Party
Every year (three so far) I brainstorm party themes with my son for his birthday. This year was very exciting because he is into SO many things- Disney Cars, pirates, Toy Story, etc. When I asked him what kind of party he wanted, he thought for 10 seconds and said “Toy Story”. … then the brainstorming began for Toy Story activities.
I needed activities for approximately 25 kids that could be done in the backyard on a potentially hot day. We had a blow up water slide, blow up bounce house, and pool but I still needed some Toy Story festivities. We came up with the following Toy Story activities:
Guess the Army Men: Bag of toy soldiers, jar, guess sheet, pen
I ordered a bag of toy soldiers offline and stuffed a bunch in a large mason jar. We printed out a piece of paper with 2 columns- Name & Guess. Each child took a guess at the number of soldiers in the jar. Whoever was the closest WON the jar of army men. (Plus I used the extra soldiers that didn’t fit in the jar to decorate the tables).
Make your own Mr or Mrs Potato Head: brown paper bags, construction paper, glue sticks, black marker
We cut out each piece from construction paper before the party. Since the children were girls and boys, we tried to make sure there were enough pieces that would capture what girls and boys would want. Our pieces included: arms, green hats, blonde ponytails, regular eyes, eyes with eyeshadow and eyelashes, angry eyes, red oval noses, orange triangle noses, pink lips, white teeth, mustaches, blue shoes, and purple shoes. We drew a potato in black marker on each brown paper bag and put 1 set of arms in each bag. At the party each kid got a bag and was able to glue on their arms. Then they picked each piece and glued each onto their potato. The bags were used again later to hold the candy for the pinata AND that was our goodie bag!
Pinata:1 pinata, 2 bags candy, wiffle ball bat, bandana, bags for gathering candy
Our Buzz Lightyear pinatas worked great. They are usually around $20 at the party store and I buy 2 big bags of mixed candy at the Wholesale Club for filling. Each kid gets a turn hitting the pinata and we use a standard wiffle ball bat. The little kids go right up, and I blindfold the bigger kids.
Each piece of food had a Toy Story name too. Buzz Lightyear burgers and hot dogs, Mr Potato Head Salad, Woody’s Round up Grilled Chicken Salad, Slinky Dog Pasta Salad, Jessie’s Yodeling Fruit Salad. You can cut out pieces of red construction paper to make mini Etch A Sketches and write name tags for each dish!
We had a custom
cake made that included the Toy Story characters (and a Happy Birthday Banner). AND made special alien cupcakes using green frosting, 
marshmallows, and green sour straw candies.
Our Toy Story themed party was a lot of fun and perfect for a 3rd birthday party. We also opted for a pony (named Bullseye) which was a huge hit! I can’t wait to start on next year’s theme!
