7702

Bike Parade -5yr- Park Pavilion

Dec. 2003

Laura in Bradenton, Florida, U.S.A.

Honorable Mention

5-Year Old Birthday Bike Parade.  The bike theme was my 5-year-old daughter's idea; it was highly original, very inexpensive and best of all easy! The other parents are still talking about it a year later! 

Location - we have a nice neighborhood park with a covered pavilion that we rented.  

Invitations - a Yellow street sign (diamond shape) with black silhouette of a bike, I added clipart of a balloon tied to the handlebars.  The diamond was flap that lifted to reveal a digital image of my daughter riding her bike.  It read: Pedal on over for a bike parade.  Guests were asked to bring their bike or roller blades and be sure to wear a helmet. 

Decorations - Black & white racing flag pennants, checkered racing-theme table cloths, traffic signs (with birthday symbols), posters hung at different stations, such as The Detail Shop (with flames on the sign), Department of Bicycle Safety (first aide and bike license), Pit Stop (for serving the cake). 

Party Favors - I was pleased with the variety and availability of "give away items" available from the different bicycle safety organizations - there is a ton of information about bike safety rules and use of helmets.  I was given posters, comic books, pencils, battery operated reflectors for the spokes, reflective slap bracelets, and bike license plates with stickers to personalize.  All I had to buy were sport-bottles and whistles.  I personalized the water bottles with each party guest's name, painted in puffy paint.   

Activities - when each guest arrived, I took their picture with a Polaroid Izone camera - an instant passport sized photo sticker.  I attached their picture to a bike license I had made on the computer (from Oriental.com I purchased inexpensive badge holders on strings to hold their license). 

After checking in with the Department of Bike Safety for their license, they received a license plate and sticker letters to personalize it, we attached it to their bike with pipe cleaners.  Then the guests were directed to the Detail Shop, and instructed to decorate their bikes. 

I had prepared individual Ziploc bags with bike decorations for each guest - included were neon color straws slit down the middle to put on their bike spokes; metallic streamers for their handle bars attached with rubber bands, and lots of colorful crate paper to wrap their bike frames.

A small paper plate was tied to the front of their handlebars with a design they colored.  After all of the guests had decorated their bikes (which looked so cute!!!) we went on a bike parade throughout the entire park.  I had staked traffic signs along the parade route with messages like, I break for cake and a picture of a birthday cake, no frowning with a picture of a smiling clown, fun zone - no limit, etc. Other people at the park all stopped and stared as the 15 kids biked by!   

After the parade I had a small obstacle course with traffic cones for the kids to weave in and out of; they all received a mini-dirt bike prize. 

Cake - It was a large sheet cake -  on one half it was decorated to look like a park, (green grass, brown trail, flowers etc) I place small bike toys on the path; on the other half I had a photo of my daughter scanned on edible rice paper, it was her riding her bike. The bakery did a beautiful job. 

Everyone had so much fun, and the park was the perfect setting, because the  inattentive, active 5 year olds were able to play on the swings, and slides if they didn't want to sit at the table eating cake.  I was happy because it wasn't at my house where I would have a huge clean up job.  My daughter loved her party!

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