Easy Ideas for a Toddler-Preschooler Party in the Quarantine Era
/We love birthday celebrations! Eliana turned two during this global pandemic, so our options were limited. We kept it simple and focused on her having fun, and it turned out perfectly! Here are my top tips for a fun birthday while social distancing.
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Choose a theme that excites your child but is also easy to execute (i.e., supplies readily available online)
Rainbow was the obvious theme for my daughter and there is an abundance of rainbow-themed supplies on Amazon and Target. We also had a rainbow theme for my son’s big brother celebration.
Check out my next post for details on our rainbow decor and cake.
Themes of our past parties include dinosaurs, emojis, spring flowers and circus, all of which are easy to put together.
I planned to make a rainbow balloon garland but decided at the last minute that I’d rather spend quality time with my kids. No one missed it!
Decorate the house before she wakes up
We blew up about 30 balloons (took about six minutes with an electric balloon pump), taped a bunch to the banister, hung garlands (I linked our 3 for $5 ones below) and put a rainbow tablecloth on the breakfast table.
Decorate the cake as an activity
My daughter is only two, but I decorated the cake with my five year old son while she was sleeping and it was the highlight of his day! We bake this relatively healthy cake often, so he was pretty excited to be using food coloring and decorating with M&Ms!
If you’re not up for baking , support your local bakery. You can even order a simple buttercream cake and decorate it yourself or add a fun cake topper (we had a great personalized cake topper at Sam’s dinosaur birthday).
Check out my next post for details on our rainbow cake.
Include family virtually
You can Zoom them in for “Happy Birthday” and even have each family member hold a candle and blow it out together. For a first or second birthday, I’d plan to keep the Zoom session short and manage participants’ expectations. If you think your child will get overwhelmed, just FaceTime individuals throughout the day.
You can also ask each family member to send a birthday greeting in advance and compile them all into one video montage (I like the inShot app for this).
Get festive
I made the whole day extra fun for my daughter — prepared her favorite foods and activities (including a dance party, nature walk and bubble bath), and even reactivated my Rent the Runway subscription to rent dresses for both of us (head to my roundup of exclusive promos for a discount).
Scavenger gift hunt
For toddler’s you can hide individual gifts (similar to an Easter egg hunt). For preschoolers and up you can organize a more involved sequence of clues to find the one gift.
Host a Netflix party
Download the Netflix extension in Chrome so friends and family can all watch a movie together.
Stage your own cake smash or photo shoot
When my now five year old turned one I staged his cake smash at home. It took planning but was fun and turned out great!! Here are my tips for a DIY cake smash.
Bring on the characters
If your child is really into a character, you can dress up as it to make their day! Amazon has loads of adult costumes including Disney, Pixar and even cutesy sharks for the “Baby Shark” obsessed. If you’ve been wearing 100% loungewear and athleisure, your kid will be extra delighted to see you dressed as a princess!
Plan in advance!
Supplies and even groceries are harder to come by these days. I quickly ordered a bunch of rainbow-themed items from Amazon and Target late one night when I noticed that Amazon was estimating delivery as the day before daughter’s birthday. Most of the items arrived days early but a few didn’t arrive in time.
Shop Target items featured in this post
