If you're sitting there scrolling through the internet searching for party ideas for a six year old while wondering where the last five years have gone, we're with you. Once your little one starts school and you're occupied with that seemingly never ending daily routine, time just whizzes past. Their baby days are well and truly over and now you have a street-smart kid on your hands who knows almost as much about birthday parties as you do. Six year olds are just great, aren't they?
You can still surprise and impress your youngster for their sixth birthday. It just takes a little more forethought and planning to make sure the sixth birthday party theme you choose has the right wow factor.
When you're organising a birthday party for a six year old and their friends, consider the fact that at this age the more occupied you can keep the guests the better. After being in class for a year, a six year old’s natural curiosity is in full swing so anything new is interesting and exciting.
With that in mind Fly By Fun have put together the best sixth birthday party themes and ideas for 2022. These sixth birthday party ideas will get the kids participating in games and activities they'll enjoy to the max.
6th Birthday Party Ideas
These 6th birthday party ideas are perfect for mixed gender parties as well as all girl or all boy guests. Most can also be easily adapted for indoor or outdoor spaces with the minimum of effort. Whichever of these party themes you choose, you can guarantee the party will be mega fun from the word go.
Bingo Party
It’s not only adults who love a game of bingo, so do kids. When you want to host a party that doesn't go on for too long, but still want an activity that will capture the attention of six year olds, playing bingo works a treat. It's a game that lets them show off their new prowess with numbers too.
Best thing to do is set up one room as the bingo hall or if you're going to play outside, use a table large enough to seat everyone around. Make sure you have a table full of prizes ready to give out to the line and house winners. This is where the local dollar store comes in very useful as you can accumulate a pile of giveaways for next to nothing.
There are lots of downloadable bingo cards for kids on the internet you can print off or you can purchase ready made packs of cards. Many craft and toy stores also stock them. They don't just come with numbers, there are bingo cards with animals, letters of the alphabet, animals and objects so if you're worried about any of the kid's numerical skills, you can use those instead.
Hawaiian Party
A Hawaiian party is a super summertime party theme for six year olds and one that you can organise for a minimal cost which is an absolute bonus. Make the setting as colourful as you can with fake palm leaves, balloons and streamers. Paper lanterns and globes work well for this theme too.
Pin multi-coloured grass skirts around the edge of the table where you'll be putting the food and you'll have created the perfect Hawaiian party look. The same idea works well if you're using a table as a makeshift tiki bar.
You can either greet all the guests with a lei as they arrive or have the kids string garlands of fake flowers as one of the party activities. Either way is a winner. Great activities at a Hawaiian themed party are limbo dancing, Hawaiian dancing and a coconut shy game.
Serve fruit juice cocktails or a juice punch loaded with pieces of fruit to drink and what could possibly be better to eat than pizza Hawaii?
Tip:The boy guests might not be too interested in wearing grass skirts so ask their parents to send them to the party in a flowery or palm tree printed shirt
Sports Party
Outdoor Sports Party – You don't need to have a huge garden area to host an outdoor sports party though if you do have one, great. This party is fantastic held in a park or on the beach as well as in a home environment.
To set up a games area you'll need a suitably sized basketball net, a badminton net, some cricket stumps and some cushions to use as base markers for a rounders pitch. You don't have to have all of the games, but a variety makes it more fun for the kids.
When you split the kids into teams it's great if you name each team or to make your life a lot easier, give them a different coloured cap so you remember who is on what team. Once you've got a dozen little ones charging around at full speed things can tend to get confusing.
Indoor Sports Party - Okay, so you won't want to set up a rounders pitch in your living room, but there are still sports you can get the kids involved in when the party is being held indoors. Basketball is still a winner if you use a foam ball that won't do any damage to windows or furniture.
Hula hoops create hilarious antics that will have everyone in fits of laughter. If you have a large dining table a game of balloon football is fun too. Balloon football isn't about kicking the balloon around the room, but blowing it from one end of the table to the other using straws. Skittles played with a soft ball are a super option too and simple yoga exercises performed to some chill out music are a great way of calming everyone down when it's time for food.
Don't forget - whether you hold the party indoors or out there has to be prizes or mini trophies for the winning teams. They don't have to be expensive. A cupcake with a star or trophy decoration is an economical solution.
NB: If you're having a lot of youngsters at the party and don't feel you'll be able to organise all the sporting events unassisted, Fly By Fun have amazing sport entertainers who excel at this type of activity who will be only too happy to help you out.
Fancy Dress Party
A fancy dress or costume party is a fun theme for a six year old's birthday and one you don't have to put too much effort into planning.
Send out the party invitations stating quite clearly that fancy dress is a must for all who attend including any adults. By the time they're six most kids have got a few costumes in their wardrobe, be it princesses or superheroes, so you won't be putting the parents to any extra expense.
As far as decorations go, you can either theme the party around your little one's character or keep it simple and go for a basic happy birthday style. Best games for this type of party are the classic ones like musical statues, pass the parcel and Simon Says. A bit of disco dancing to some of the latest hits goes down well too.
Just because you've chosen a general fancy dress theme for your little one's sixth birthday doesn't mean they can't have their favourite character come to see them and make their day extra special. The most popular characters that are trending in 2022 are Captain Jack Sparrow, Spiderman, Elsa and Rapunzel. If they're not your youngster favourite, don't worry, Fly By Fun have plenty more character entertainers for you to choose from.
Glow Party
Scheduling a party for a six year old can get complicated when they're at school especially if you're unfortunate and have to work over the weekends too. A glow party is a fantastic theme for an after school celebration during those months of the year when its dark by five-thirty or six.
Move all of the furniture out of one room, and cover one or more walls with black paper. You can either write a happy birthday message with glow chalk yourself or let the kids loose to enjoy creating some glow in the dark graffiti artwork. There are lots of glow in the dark party decorations you can get that will leave the kids completely wowed so go all out with as many of those as you can. It'll look incredible.
There are so many neon coloured glow in the dark kid's party accessories available on the internet as well as glow in the dark face paints that the choice is endless. Deck them out with glasses, necklaces, bracelets or have a white t-shirt for each guest and let them make their own design with a glow in the dark pen. Then put some music on and let them have a neon disco until it's time to cut the cake and send them home.
If it's dark, but the weather is warm, this theme works just as well outside as in and will make any garden into a magical spectacular with not too much effort at all. Glow in the dark chalks work just as well on paving stones as they do on black paper so the little ones will still be able to be creative.
Science Party
For kids of six years of age science is as magic as magic is and even the simplest of experiments can leave them open mouthed with wonder.
To be honest, for this party theme we recommend having a professional entertainer who is experienced in creating scientific experiments for kids. It'll prevent you from having to study for hours when you've got lots of other things to do and stop you worrying about experiments going wrong.
The kids will be thrilled with the laboratory atmosphere and completely mind boggled when they watch how lava lamps, crazy instant snow and touchable bubbles that don't burst are created then, even better, get to do it themselves. What we've discovered over the years is that the one thing the kids love making and playing with most is slime.
Making the food and drink to match a science party theme does take a little more imagination, but can be done. What you'll need is a good supply of various different edible food colourings. Make coloured lemonade and serve it in plastic test tubes and if you have a chocolate fondue set, use it, but add green food colouring to white chocolate. It looks totally gross, but tastes amazing and the kids will love it.
Pool Party
While you're browsing the internet searching for party ideas for your little one's sixth birthday, you'll probably come across several web pages suggesting pool parties. We don't recommend a pool party for this age group as it can turn out to be a dangerous nightmare to supervise rather than the fun-packed event you'd thought it would be.
What you can do instead is host a faux pool party with no pool. Yes, you will need an outdoor space and some complimentary warm weather to make it work. The guests will need to arrive in swimwear and bring a change of clothes with them too so you don't send them home soaked through.
Keep one part of the garden water-free for spreading out towels for the kids to lay on. You can use the same spot for a picnic or serving the barbecued food. Make this theme super fun by setting up garden sprinklers for the kids to run through. Give them all brightly coloured sunshades and a water pistol and be at hand when they're ready for a refill which will probably be quite often. This type of pool party is still fun, a lot safer and won't leave you stressed out.
Fly By Fun has been Australia's top kids entertainment company for over a decade so if you're still not sure how you want to celebrate your little one's sixth birthday, the best thing to do is get in touch. We'll be only too happy to help make sure that their special day works out as perfectly as you want it to.