Party Idea: a Noah’s Ark-themed Birthday

While preparing for our daughter’s first birthday party last year, my husband and I decided not to go the usual route of having the party at fastfood establishments. Since we had just returned from a five year-mission abroad, we decided to have a celebration with close friends and family members, serving as a reunion of sorts at the same time.

We chose “Noah’s Ark” because the story of Noah is a very popular Bible story among young children, and also reflected our own testimony to God’s faithfulness to us, especially to our little girl. The party was also our way of saying “thank you” to everyone who had supported us through their prayers while we were in Timor Leste.


Invitations

Hoping to do our part in conserving the environment, we decided to forego printed invitations and used e-mail invites instead.

We used photos of Noah’s Ark available on the Net (Google for them and you’ll see lots of options you can use) and edited them as needed (I used Powerpoint, as I am not familiar with Adobe or other similar software). Then we sent them out to the people we wished to invite and followed them up by phone and text.

 

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For parents who still prefer to give printed invites, you could still do the same thing and have the pictures printed as photos. Crafty moms may also opt to cut out shapes of an ark and decorate them with animal stickers or shapes and the like for more personalized invitations.

Venue
We opted to have the party at a little swimming resort near our home. It already had a nice ambiance, so we didn’t need to decorate much (This helped us cut down on costs!). Also, a swimming party was in line with our theme, since, as we all know, the story of Noah involved the great flood on the earth.

Other venue options parents can consider are places that have animals, like a zoo (if this is allowed), or maybe even a family member’s or friend’s spacious backyard, or a swimming pool in your own neighborhood.


Decorations

For decorations, we spread a lot of colorful balloons around the resort. We had a tarpaulin made with the invitation design (edited) and hung it in the middle of the venue.

I also drew large “coloring” pictures depicting the story of Noah on several sheets of brown paper and taped them onto the tables. (I copied simple illustrations from the Internet – samples can be found here: www.coloring.ws/noah.htm and here:). We bought several small boxes crayons and placed them on the tables. The “coloring sheets” were a huge hit, especially with the kids who came but didn’t bring any swimming attire.

 

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My husband also bought several pairs of big plastic animals from Divisoria, and used them as table “centerpieces.” The kids enjoyed playing with them while waiting for the food to be served.

For other décor ideas, parents could have animal-shaped balloons, large “standees” of animals (in pairs) where kids can have their photos taken, or maybe even a homemade “ark,” made out of a big empty refrigerator box. (There are loads of ideas on the internet.)

You could also ask guests to bring their favorite stuffed animal (if it applies to their age) and have an “ark” ready (an empty box or something similar) where they can “deposit” their fluffy friends for safe-keeping.


Food

We served typical party fare, but parents who really wish to stick to the Noah’s Ark theme may opt to serve dishes with “animal” themes or names, like animal crackers, sandwiches cut with animal shaped cookie cutters, tiger balls (round cheese doodles), or pigs in a blanket (hot dogs), and so on (although these are more commonly served in birthday parties in Western countries).

We did, however, have a Noah’s Ark birthday cake – I designed it myself – and sent it over to Red Ribbon, who did a great job of making the cake. It tasted delicious too!

 

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Games and Activities

The games and activities we prepared were:
•    “Animal Hunt” – I hid little plastic animals (also from Divisoria) around one part of the resort and the kids had to find them. The one who got the most animals won.
•    “The Story of Noah’s Ark” – This is a story-telling activity, and we prepared small flash-cards that had pictures of the scenes in the story, so kids could raise them up at the appropriate time.
•    “Guess the animal” – This is done with a different twist for added fun: selected adults have to act out being a certain animal and kids would have to guess what animal they were impersonating.
•    “Stick the animal on the Ark” – A variation on “Pin the tail on the donkey”: I prepared a picture of Noah’s ark and cut-outs of different animals. (We didn’t get to play this though as the kids only wanted to swim!)

 

Giveaways
For giveaways, we prepared tumblers (also bought in Divisoria) with Rysse’s Noah’s Ark picture and a thanksgiving message printed on it. We put sweets, animal stickers and bubbles inside the tumbler.

Other alternatives for giveaways are small stuffed animals, animal coloring books or storybooks. Kids can also do Noah’s Ark themed crafts at the party to take home afterwards, as an addition to the giveaways.