What’s more fun than an epic Super Mario birthday party complete with team competitions in a versus race, balloon battle and coin battle and so much more?! This party is certainly one of our top favorites and even was requested to do it all over again a few months later and for next year!
Time has flown and somehow I neglected to share last year’s parties so even though it was a summer birthday, I thought I’d share now for any of those party planners looking ahead for ideas!
My son wanted to invite a LOT of families so I knew it was going to have to be extremely organized especially since we have small rooms in our house and have to do parties all outside for the most part. So I made a pinewood derby car racing area for the kids to play on before the food and the three organized race events. The kids were invited to make a pinewood derby during their summer break if they wanted and so they could race them. That was a huge hit and was the perfect entertainment before we ate!
Decorations:
I drew, hand-cut and painted the cardboard cut outs for the characters. I also used a black paper lantern to create chain chomp decor with black construction paper to make links and another black paper lantern for the bomb. I painted a thick line in the middle of yellow paper plates and stuck them in various places for coins. Next, I found a large bolt of red and white polka dot fabric that was on clearance and I cut into strips and made table runners. I wrapped Kleenex boxes with yellow poster paper and cut out question marks and then painted dots on the boxes to create the question boxes. I found some pvc pipes and spray painted them green, taped the bottoms and then put soil inside. To finish, I used skewer rods and some Styrofoam balls I painted red with white dots to create the piranha plants for the middle centerpieces. We also had several boxes that were wrapped in brick wrapping paper from my nephew’s construction themed birthday party that we got to reuse so that was perfect!
Food Menu:
- Watermelon bowl (Koopa Troopa turtle shell) filled with fruit
- Popcorn (squids)
- Chips (coins)
- Bananas with faces drawn on with sharpie
- Mario’s pizza (cheese and pepperoni bagel bites)
- Luigi’s linguine mini cups (cold pasta)
- Blueberry Super Mario cake
- Strawberry and vanilla cupcakes
- Adorable Super Mario cookies by Sweet Anomaly’s
- Luigi Italian ice
- Princess Peach punch (raspberry and orange sherbet with sprite)
Now, on to the organized race events, the highlight of the whole party!
Activities:
There were three races and so we made three teams by dividing everyone up evenly and as fairly as possible by mixing ages. Each team wore their color wristband (blue, red or green) and stayed with that team throughout all races they could earn points for different things in the races.
Race 1: Versus
There was a path marked that they had to stay on, if you got off or if anything got you, you had to freeze and count to ten. I recruited all parents to take a station (some had multiple parents) and help with whatever the activity was (unless of course they had smaller children they had to stay with to guide). For the first four parts, they all stayed more in a line and took turns as they made it through those stations.
- The race started (after a countdown and wave of the racing flag) by jumping from mushroom pad to pad (these were made from hula hoops covered with red plastic tablecloths and spray painted with white circles using a cardboard box with a hole cut out as my template).
- Next they had to weave through cones
- A large box with brick wrapping paper held some empty food cans that were wrapped with construction paper and a cut out of a bad Mario character. They used turtle shell stuffies to try to knock the cans down. As soon as they knocked at least one can down, they could advance.
- Banana slip (water slide)
- Yoshi egg hunt and Chain Chomp! Four adults were stationed at each corner of this one. This area was marked off in a big rectangle with spray paint on the grass (or you can use string). I stuffed about 50 white easter eggs with gold coins of varying amounts in each egg and then drew green dots in sharpie on them. These were scattered all inside the marked off area. At each side was a bucket that was spray painted a team color (red, blue and green). Chain Chomp was made from a black exercise ball that I painted a face on with white acrylic paint. All the kids made it through the banana slip and then gathered around the outside of the rectangle to wait for the “go”. The instructions were to gather as many eggs as you could get and put it into your team’s bucket. While they were gathering, the adults tossed “Chain Chomp” back and forth around the space. Anyone touched by it had to freeze for 10 seconds. Once all eggs were up, they could advance to the next part of the race (leaving their team buckets).
- Piranha plants. At this one, parents (those finished at the other stations can make it to this one to help easily) made a line on each side to create an aisle and held “piranha plants”. These were made from cut out poster board that I painted and used paper to create teeth. Then I cut slits in green pool noodles and hot glued the red “heads” onto the stems. Parents waved them and tried to get the kids. If they were gotten, they had to freeze for 5 seconds.
- Next, they had to “drive” through the water or inflatable pool by going straight through it.
- Finally, they had to drive around a big circle before exiting at the finished line. The first person across got 10 pts added to their team (and yes, keeping a clipboard to keep track of points is very helpful and a person who can watch the finish closely). The team to get all their team members across first also gets 10 pts so be sure they group together as a team at the end and know how many are on each team. The second team gets 5 pts and the last team gets 1 pt.
Race 2: Coin Battle
Square off another large section of the yard. Sprinkle gold coins all over. Adults were stationed around the sides with different color water balloons in tubs of water. Blue were ice balls, red were fire, white were squids. If you were hit with a blue water balloon you had to freeze for 10 sec. If you were hit with a red water balloon you have to be on your knees for 10 seconds. And if you were hit by a white balloon, you have to cover your eyes for 10 seconds. The team buckets were brought over for this battle as well. On “go” all the kids rushed to gather as many coins as they could for their team buckets.
Race 3: Balloon Battle
The final race! I had a few different ideas for this one but the one we went with was putting the team color water balloons all over the ground and three buckets filled with water. The goal was to have the most team balloons in your bucket, BUT, you could stomp on the other team’s balloons to keep from them getting any in the bucket. Once their balloons were in their buckets though, they were safe. It would have been great, except there was one hiccup we had to adjust for. The ground was so dry that the balloons kept popping the moment we put them on the ground. So we used napkins to put under each. Another option is to wet the ground before or put down a tarp, but you run the risk of it being pretty slippery. So it depends on your ground and age range. The other option I considered for older kids was to have a string balloon on their foot and everyone try to pop each other’s balloons. For the younger kids, I would have had a coraled area for them to put the right color balloons into the right bin. They all would have earned points for their team. The team with the most balloons intact by the end of 1 minute got 10 pts, 5 pts for second and 1 pt for third.
Final Tally!
Now, while the kids were getting dry, getting drinks or trying an obstacle game again…we had a few adults counting up all the coins in each bucket. Then we announced 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners and everyone got a medal for those places.
Finale:
We then opened gifts and then gathered by the tree for the question box pinata. Since we had so many kids, I opted this time for just party favors in the pinata especially since my son wanted a pinata. I packed it so full it ended up falling down quicker than intended so we used the brick box to hold it up and gave everyone a chance to hit it once. All the kids were also given a Super Mario favor bag from Party City. If you’re curious what to fill it with, I found these below and I also added some Yum candies (I found cheap at TJ Maxx and Party City) because I’m all about less candy and organic, dye-free options, some individual goldfish bags and teddy graham bags.
Other party supplies:
I hope you have as much fun as we did if you plan a Mario birthday! It will certainly be one of our top birthday memories and the boys’ hand-painted, “Mommy-made” Mario outfits are still favorites (the crochet Yoshi hat was made by another friend, Crissa, and they wear that hat all the time!)! Happy planning!
