Build a Birthday Party Around a Field Trip

Our two kids were both born in October, eleven years apart. For the first one’s 11th birthday, I had to come up with a celebration I could pull off while recovering from a c-section and with a two week old baby in tow. I knew it would have to be something my husband could pretty much do by himself.

For a theme idea, I was thinking about some of the things she and her friends were interested in and small pets came to mind. I would venture to guess that’s probably the median age for gerbil/hamster/bunny ownership. In our house, it was a guinea pig by the name of Honeysuckle Rose, Rosie for short.

Rosie had been healthy but I remembered noticing a place called “Bird and Exotic Animal Hospital” not far from us. As homeschoolers, I was always making mental notes of field trip ideas and I suddenly had the thought that I could solve my birthday party dilemma by centering it on a field trip. Ta da!

The animal hospital was happy to schedule a field trip (I didn’t mention the birthday party part) for the six girls, and wow, what a great place it was! The employees truly loved their jobs and went out of their way to provide an informative and fun experience. The kids got to hold some of the furry and feathered patients, see a couple of procedures demonstrated, and got an overall heaping helping of little critter love. My husband enjoyed it too.

When they got back to our house, I served mini pizza rolls and potato chips in little cat food dishes that Dad picked up for me at a local dollar store. I had painted their names on them, so their serving dishes became their party favors too – cute storage for jewelry, coins, etc

Organized games were more than I could manage and not really my husband’s forte, so they just played for an hour or so and then we had cake and ice cream.

This kind of doubling up strategy would work for lots of other places. Whether you’ve just had a baby, are on a tight budget, or just want something different than the usual birthday party destinations, think about your kid’s interests and plan a field trip. You don’t have to be homeschoolers either. Many places could host you during after school hours or on a Saturday.

For max impact, your going to want the educational part to be incidental and the wow factor part to be front and center. So skip historical sites or museums and pick something or some place big, or dirty, or unusual or all three. I could see this working for a local quarry, a fire station, maybe a chocolate factory or bakery, a construction site, etc. Sometimes you just have to ask and people are willing to have a small group through and show off what they do.

I realize that group activities aren’t always possible, but maybe your group could be just your family and maybe an outdoor location would work. If you have ideas, please share! Whatever the challenges in daily life, it’s important not to forgo the celebration of the lives of people we love.