Are your kids Wild Kratts’ fans?! It’s our favorite show around here–perfect for the kiddos of two animal-loving, biology nerd parents like us (I was a high school biology teacher before going on leave with the kids)!
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For those that aren’t familiar, it’s a great show on PBS Kids all about animals and their unique creature powers! It’s geared toward early elementary kids and from both a science education and animation perspective, it’s fabulous!!!
With the boys’ birthdays only one day apart, there was no question that we were going to do another joint birthday party (just like last year’s train party). The issue was just figuring out the theme. We debated a few different ideas and then the idea for a Wild Kratts party happened! It seemed like SUCH the perfect theme, not only for the animals, but also that the show features two brothers! How cute is that for a joint brothers’ birthday party?! And, Big Brother was ecstatic! In fact, when I presented the idea to him, he said, “Oh yah, Mom! That’s exactly what I was thinking!” 🙂 So, that’s exactly what we did!
The only caveat to throwing a Wild Kratts party is that (because it’s a relatively new show) there is almost no merchandise available–no plate, cups, napkins, balloons, invitations, nothing! So, we had to do it all DIY style (you can see all my inspiration on my Wild Kratts pinterest board)! It was perfect for incorporating quite a few just general safari/jungle/animal themed ideas! With so many plush & hard plastic animals in our house, we had some easy decorations already! 🙂
As always, making the cake/desserts was one of my favorite aspects to party planning. Unlike many of my previous cake creations, the cake this year was rather simple and I opted for cute cupcakes & toppers instead. But, I like the way it turned out! We had zebra cake pops, a simple Creature Power Paw cake, animal cupcakes, and zebra bins filled with animals crackers & gummy creatures!
This year, I also had great fun putting out some themed food items! We had lots of adults and kids to plan for, so we needed a diversity of items. There wasn’t a lot left over by the end of the night, so I think it turned out pretty well! Here’s the menu: “Safari Sandwiches” (catered), “Green Viper Salsa” (our favorite green salsa from a local Mexican food restaurant) with chips, “Herbivore Corner” (fresh veggies, chips, and dip), “Ants on a Log”, “Gorilla Grub” (a big fruit salad), and “Bug Bites” (mini corn dog nuggets with rice noodles).
We also had the “watering hole” set up for some drinks (sadly, I forgot to take a picture until the end of the night, so picture it with a few more cups & drink items)–the crowd favorite was the “jungle juice” (which is just our favorite green punch recipe).
While all the food was a big hit, the favorite things amongst the kids were by far the favors and activities! For favors, each kiddo got their very own Creature Power Suit complete with Creature Power discs (full post on making these coming soon), a couple of things to go along with our activities, and an animal coloring book. I found the Planet Earth coloring books at the dollar store–which was an awesome find!!
We had Wild Kratts on while our little guests arrived. A few of the kiddos had never seen the show, so it was fun for them to all watch a little bit. Then, once everyone had arrived, we headed into the other room to talk about “creature powers” and hand out the Creature Power Suits! They were SO excited!! Here are some of the adorable little guys sporting their new suits (sadly, our littlest birthday boy and a couple of guests are missing from the picture and we didn’t manage another group shot the rest of the night!).
After everyone had their suits on, it was time to get out the creature power discs and start some activities! 🙂 Each one of them got a baggie filled with 8 discs–they loved looking at the different animals!
We talked about some of the different animals and then I asked them which one of their animals eats a lot of bugs. A couple of the kids were quick to shout out, “Bats”!! And, they were right! So, we put on our bat creature power discs in order to go outside in “the jungle” and hunt bugs just like bats do!
Then, we went back inside to look at all of our bugs & talk about the next creature power! When asked about which animal is the fastest, they almost all yelled, “Cheetah”. So, we activated our cheetah powers & went outside for a game a cheetah tag, complete with tail snatching! I was so worried that the they would get upset about having their tails snatched off, but they all did great & had great fun chasing each other!
After cheetah tag, we had one last organized activity and it ended up being the crowd favorite, hands down!! For this particular activity we got our bass creature powers on–and went fishing for little fish!! It was a huge hit–so much so that the rest of the night was pretty much just spent eating & fishing! 🙂
All in all, it turned out to be such a fun time and we’re so thankful to all the friends and family that came over to help celebrate the birthdays of our little guys! A very happy 5th & 2nd birthday for our special brothers, indeed!
Thanks for sharing in all of our Wild Kratts fun! Separate posts are coming with details on making many of the items for the party, so stay tuned!
Related posts, party details, and inspiration can be found here:
- DIY (“No-Sew”) Creature Power Suits
- DIY Wild Kratts Decorations & Activities
- Jungle Animal Cupcakes
- Backyard Fishing Activity
- Safari Animal Cut-outs (coming soon)
- Wild Kratts Party Planning Pinterest Board
Linked to: *TidyMom, *Tatertots & Jello, *Sundae Scoop, *Skip to My Lou, *Tip Junkie, *Today’s Creative, *Not Just a Housewife, *Oopsey Daisy, *My Insanity’s Annual Party Party
59 Responses
A truly awesome party! Great job Sara!!
Thanks, Karen! 🙂
This is AMAZING! My boys are Wild Kratts obsessed these days, so this would be perfect for us! Definitely saving this idea for next year since we just finished up with their birthdays. 🙂
Isn’t it such a great show?! We love it! How old are your boys?
Oh wow, I’m going to have you over to design my son’s next birthday party!
LOL! Thanks, Kelly! 🙂
This is so great! My son loves Wild Kratts. He pretends to have a creature suit all the time. He would die if this was his party. LOVE IT!
Thanks, Megan! How old is he? I bet he would love one of the DIY creature power suits! 🙂
Fantastic Party Sara!! The “suits” turned out great!!!
Thanks, Laura! Thanks for talking me through things at the store!
OMG… you are the BEST! I wanna party at your house! Your little men are SO LUCKY. Oh the memories you are making. 🙂 TFS all the fun. Big Hugs….
Aw, thanks Carol! Hopefully they think so as they get older! 🙂
This looks wonderful & fun. wow!! you went all out.
Thanks, Angela! I love doing the themed parties! Plus, it’s easier to go all out when I just do one party a year (at least for now anyway)! 🙂
This is amazing! I can’t wait to show this to my colleagues. Thanks.
Wow, Tracey–that is SO exciting! 🙂 Your comment made my day! We love PBS and (obviously) especially Wild Kratts (Dinosaur Train is then 2nd fave)! 🙂
What a cool party! My little girl loves Wild Kratts. She came up behind me and said “Mom I would love that party!!”
Aw, what a compliment! 🙂 How old is she?
I haven’t seen that show-my nephews would love it! I’ll have to see if its on over here in Australia. Your party ideas are great too. Thanks for all the great info!
My weekly Say G’day Saturday linky party is on now and I would be so thrilled if you could stop by and link up this fabulous post!
Best wishes and happy weekend!
Natasha in Oz
No idea if it’s on in Oz, but hopefully. There is even an episode or two about Australian animals!
Oh my! This looks like such a fun party! I would love it if you would come by and share your awesome party idea on my new linky party Dare to Share.
Pam
http://pamspartyplanning.blogspot.com/2012/04/dare-to-share-party-3.html
Thanks, Pam!
Wow – very impressive! I love every part about it.
Thanks, Jenn!
Oh my gosh your party is so cute! I would love it if you came over to Cast Party Wednesday and shared your cute party ideas with us. Thanks, I hope to see you there!
—Sheryl—
http://www.ladybehindthecurtain.com/?p=27605
I don’t know Wild Kratts. Now that I have a boy, I’ll probably learn pretty quickly. I’m always drawn to parties though, and you didn’t disappoint. Great work!
Thanks, Jodi! Yes–it’s a GREAT show for little guys (well, and girls too, but my boys are particularly drawn to it)!
I have never heard of WIld Kratts, but Sara this is AWESOME!!! 🙂 I love the nutter butter giraffe cupcakes. All those animals make for a fun theme for sure!! So fun to see you at SNAP this weekend! Thanks for sharing at oopsey daisy!
Thanks, Alison! I bet Little Man would LOVE Wild Kratts–check your local Colorado PBS listings! It’s a GREAT show!!
It was great to see you at SNAP-wish there would have been more time to chat though. Time went by WAY too fast!
Hi,
I followed you over from Lil Luna’s Link Party and this is a truly amazing party! What fun they got to have.
I would love to invite you to share this, and any other posts you would like to, at my Creative Thursday Link Party (opens at 9 pacific tonight) at http://www.michellestastycreations.blogspot.com.
Have a great day,
Michelle
Could you please share the animal cut outs for me…. I have been looking everywhere to find how to do this and can’t find any good ones.
WOW Sara! The Wild Kratts party turned out amazing for the boys! It looks like you worked really hard too, and it paid off for sure!
Lisa
I’m so glad I found this site. My 2 year old will be celebrating her 3rd birthday in July and she is an avid Wild Kratts fan. She cries to watch them and will watch the same videos over and over on You Tube and PBS. She talks about Chris and Martin and what the animals do and where they live, and of course “creature power.” I feel like I have a few ideas that she will absolutely love. Thanks again for sharing.
Thank you for posting this. This past weekend, I threw a Wild Kratts party for my son’s 4th birthday. The kids had such a blast, thanks to your post! When I asked my son, “What was your favorite part about the party, he responded, “Everything! My friends said that I had the best birthday party, and they even gave me a trophy!” Thanks again!
My daughter is begging for creature power suits for her birthday! Yours are perfect and I’m going to attempt them this week. Do you have a template for the creature disks that you can share?
Shelly
Thank you so much for posting this! My son wants a Wild Kratt’s birthday and I was struggling with ideas. This is perfect!
I’m so glad you found this then! 🙂 Thanks for taking the time to comment! Hope your party is great! 🙂
This is amazing! Both my kids love Wild Kratts. Maybe I can convince my daughter that she needs a Wild Kratts party this year!
LOVED all of your ideas… I used most of them! We added two games to the mix: Creature power: Kangaroo, game Kangaroo hop (pillow sacks and jumping to beat the blue team) and Creature power: Beaver, game Tower building… (Cardboard bricks, available at our church (where party was held) so it added no cost to our party! It was a GREAT party! Thank you for posting this party!
Wondering if the transferred fabric washed off the tshirts you made…? per instructions, we sewed the edges of the fabric… that took forever! I was excited to find tshirts that were $1 a piece!
Oh… and for the tails for the cheetah power… I bought zebra fabric, cut into strips for $1.78… much less expensive as the pipe cleaners.
That’s awesome, Ranae! The kangaroo hop is perfect! 🙂
Also, for the shirts–I did not sew the edges and have washed them numerous times. Now, over a year later, it’s coming up just in a couple places, but still holding strong!
I am thinking of doing a Wild Kratts theme for son’s 5th birthday…This is an awesome springboard for ideas. What a fantastic party and I love the creature power suits!!
Thanks for the comment, Sarah! So glad you found this post then! 🙂 It’s such a fun party theme!
Thanks for posting your awesome ideas. You helped me be the crafty mom and my 3 yr old loved her party.
Thanks so much for commenting! So glad the ideas helped you! Hope your party was awesome! 🙂
Awesome party!! Did you use images from the internet to get the animal cut outs? I would like to paint some animals of that size on the wall for my son’s wild kratts’ party. Any suggestions of how I could find those animal cut outs would be great. Thank you!
Hi Shannon–I didn’t make them, so I can’t give you an exact link. But, yes, my friend just found animal pictures she liked and blew them up using an overhead projector.
Thanks for stopping by!
This is AMAZING! Thank you so much for sharing this. My son’s birthday is in February and we get so excited about planning his parties. I will be using many of these ideas!
Best. Thing. Ever! My boys 5 & almost three, love the Wild Kratts! Thanks for this!
Thanks, Jessica! 🙂
Too funny… I arrived on your site after Googling ‘Wild Kratts Birthday Party’ as I am planning a joint birthday party for my two sons– whose birthdays are ALSO one day apart. 😉 They will be 3 and 5 later this month and I can’t wait to try out some of these ideas. Thanks for sharing!
Really cute ideas! For the creature discs did you just use cardstock or were they laminated? Just wondering how they held up with little hands switching them out.
Thanks!
Hi Laura!
I printed on cardstock and then laminated them. My boys are still playing with them a few years later! 🙂
I love your wild kratts party! Quick question- did you post how you made your own creature power disks? We are following your steps to make our creature power suits for my sons 4th birthday next week!
Claire – So sorry I didn’t see this sooner! Hope you got it sorted out!
Sara – Thank you! My son turned 5 and we had a blast at our WK party! We did the butterfly cocoon / toilet paper (from another mom blog), fishing and also bass pinata (trap door, no bat–kinda unKratt like to pummel a creature, no?), and made beaver dams from pretzels and chocolate frosting on a little paper river that I made, also a pin the tail on the cheetah. The shirts and disks were a big hit, sent them home with extra disks and Natl. Geo animal books from Dollar Tree. Can’t thank you enough for sharing! I’m truly grateful to have made his day SO special!
Awwww, Ara! I’m so glad! Comments like this make my day, so thank you for taking the time to leave a message! Sounds like the party was amazing! 🙂
You are the best! So many great ideas – I’m in the planning stages right now and have referred to your page quite a bit. Love the vests and bug hunt!