This past weekend was quite busy.  We had double booked ourselves, so to speak.  Now I really like to keep myself busy, thrive on a challenge – absolutely.  But this was a bit much even for me.  You see, we had our chicks scheduled to hatch on Saturday so we planned our Sammy’s birthday party (“A firefighter birthday party with LOTS OF FIREFIGHTER GAMES please”) for Friday afternoon.  Well, as we all know, nature waits for no one.  SO, we ended up having a “firefighter birthday party with LOTS OF FIREFIGHTER GAMES please” party along with an egg hatching party.

I tell you this, so you will please excuse the fact that I have basically no photos to share with you.  I do have one of Firefighter Sam blowing out his candles – never fear – but the rest of the party was sort of camera shy.  Between tending to a house full of three and four year olds, and an incubator full of hatching eggs, the camera was often forgotten.  But, the party did indeed happen successfully, and so did some of these great Firefighter Games!  I do say some, because, as luck would have it – as the party guests arrived, so did the rain – so our outdoor firefighter games were a wash (haha!)

Firefighter Games for a Firefighter Themed Birthday Party

1.  Drop the (pretend) water into the (pretend) fire!  This is a classic birthday party game with a twist. The original version, or at least the version we played as kids, was to stand on a chair and try to drop a penny into a jar – whoever got the most pennies in won.  This is the same idea, except the kids are firefighters (of course), so I wrapped orange construction paper cut to look like flames around a jar.  Then I taped construction paper water-drop shapes to the pennies.  The goal was to drop as much water as possible into the fire to put it out.  This one was a big hit.

2. Decorate a Firefighter hat.  I pre-made some very simple firefighter hats using red paper plates.  These I made the night before (hence the pictures).  Very simply, I cut the middle of the paper plate almost all the way around, and then folded the middle up to look like a hat.  The kids could decorate them with stickers, markers, or for the very very brave party host, paint.

3.  “Search for the Fires and PUT THEM OUT!” Scavenger Hunt.  This one was another hit!  I cut out little flame shapes about the size of playing cards.  On each flame I wrote a letter.  For this scavenger hunt, I wrote: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM! – so we had 17 flames.  I then hid the flames, and I use the word “I” loosely – John and Madeline did this.  On blue construction paper I wrote the message, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM”. The little firefighters had to search for the flames, and extinguish them by taping them to the blue water, matching the letters.  This one was such a big hit, they did it twice.

4.  “Squirt out the Fire” Scavenger Hunt.  This was a firefighter game we intended to play, but had to cancel due to the rain.  We had drawn little flames all around the yard with red and orange chalk.  The little firefighters were to take their water-gun fire hoses to put out the fires.  This could have also been played with water balloons.  But the rain put out all the fires for us this time.

5.  A Firefighter Obstacle Course.  Since my little firefighter tends to get VERY excited at birthday parties (unlike most children, right?) I like to plan activities to let the kids run and get a little crazy, blowing off steam.  We had planned an outdoor firefighter obstacle course, using our Hula Hoop Outdoor Tunnel, the climber, some skipping ropes to make a ladder on the ground, things like this.

And there you have our Firefighter themed birthday party – complete with LOTS OF FIREFIGHTER GAMES please for my now 4 year old Fireman Sam.  My goodness time flies.  We really do like to keep things simple, but for birthdays – and with just how quickly time does fly, I like to spend some extra time making it extra special.

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