Your child has reached double digits and you are looking for the best backyard birthday party ideas for 10 year olds. Look no further as we have the list for you.
Ten is a big deal and it should be celebrated with style. At the age of ten every boy and girl knows what they like and will want to have a say in their party planning. And they will want all their friends there.
Going to an arcade, bowling alley, or fun zone can get pricey with all those kids, but do not fret. You can throw an amazing birthday bash for your 10 year old, right in your backyard.
We have put together a list of the best backyard birthday party ideas for 10 year olds, boys and girls. No matter what your little mister or miss is into, there is a theme for you.
We have the games, decoration ideas, and more. All you need to supply is the kids and cake. With any of these ideas, your child and their friends will have the greatest birthday bash on the block.
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10 Backyard Birthday Party Ideas For 10 Year Old Girls
Your gathering of girls will need to be stylish and full of frills. Your 10 year old girl will feel like the belle of the ball with any of these creative themes.
Her friends will be talking about this party for years to come and we have everything you will need to keep the planning simple but sweet.
1. Beach Party
With beach chairs, towels, umbrellas, and beach balls, you can bring the beach to your backyard. Serve snacks in buckets and you can also make flip-flop sandwiches, rainbow fruit kabobs, and deviled egg sailboats.
Use kiddie pools for sand and some for water and make sure there are beach toys on hand to play with. You can decorate with inflatable palm trees and place seashells all around.
Some games to play include beach volleyball, limbo, Frisbee, and water balloon toss. The girls can also decorate seashells, surfboards and make sand art necklaces to keep.
2. Fashion Show
Set up the yard for a stage and fashion show and invite all guests to come dressed to impress. You do not need a stage, just lay out some colored lights to make a runway in the grass.
Set up a glamour table for hair and makeup and offer accessories such as costume jewelry, sunglasses, hats, and feather boas. The girls can design their own styles and take a stroll on the catwalk.
You can catch memories with a photo booth or photo shoot backdrop. Play games such as Dress Up Relay Race, fashion scavenger hunt, and Musical Dress Up.
3. Movie Premiere
Lay out the red carpet as your guests arrive. You can also give awards through the night for games and activities. Play movie charades, movie bingo, and name that movie as well as have everyone give their best Oscar acceptance speech.
String up lights around the yard for a subtle twilight effect. You can use a white sheet and projector or have everyone gather around a large TV for the movie.
Make sure there is popcorn and other snacks. Guests should have pillows, sleeping bags, and pajamas for the movie.
4. Spa Party
Cover folding chairs with white towels. You can buy foot spas on Amazon as well as get face masks and pedicure sets. Snacks can include marshmallow cotton balls and wafer nail files.
You can also set up a fruit pizza bar with sugar cookies, icing and different fruit pieces. Get complete spa gift sets from Amazon that include pedicure flip flops and toe separators for each guest.
A great game to play is Dice and Nail Polish. For this game you need a dice and a bottle of nail polish. One girl rolls the dice to find out who needs to apply nail polish.
For 1 through 3 someone else will apply polish. (If a 2 is rolled, the second person to the right) and if a 5 or 6 is rolled, the person rolling has to paint a nail. The first to paint five fingers wins.
5. Under the Sea
Set up the ocean backdrop and decorate with streamers, tinsel and fishing nets to create a perfect sea-themed party.
Don’t forget to grab a few jellyfish lanterns too. Serve Oreo balls, octopus cupcakes, and oyster shell cookies. With a few kiddie pools around, the mermaids can all go fishing and bubble play makes for a real underwater experience.
Guests can make bead necklaces and decorate mermaid tails. Sharks and Minnows, Guard the Treasure, Finding Nemo, and Pin the Leg on the Octopus are perfect games for your underwater celebration.
6. Fairy Wonderland
The backyard comes alive with rainbows, ribbons, and twinkle lights. The girls can each make their own ribbon halos and you can supply a pair of fairy wings for each guest.
Decorate tables with flowers, leaves, and place settings for a tea party. All through the yard you can hang ribbons, butterfly garland, and sheer drapes. Tea sandwiches, veggie slices, fruit, macaroons, wafers, sweet tea, and lemonade are great menu ideas.
Let the girls decorate their own flowerpot and plant a flower to take home as well as paint garden rocks. Magical Mushrooms, Free the Fairies, and Pixie Dust Relay are the top games for a fairy themes party.
7. Cooking Class
Make your own pizza, toss your own salad, and decorate your own desserts. All you have to do is supply the ingredients and worktables with brown craft paper.
Plan to have ribbons to award for the best foods created. Pizzas will be made first followed by the salads. You can offer a choice of desserts or just one from sundaes, cupcakes, or Rice Krispy treats.
You want to make sure you have a variety of toppings and decorations for whichever dessert you are making. Gum drops, sprinkles, fruits, icing, marshmallows, and candies.
Give each guest an apron and chef hat. With a cooking party you don’t need to have games because the fun is all in the preparation and eating.
8. Artsy Crafts
Turn the backyard into an art studio. You will want paint, markers, glitter, glue, and crayons as well as colored construction paper and blank canvases.
You can get affordable art aprons on Amazon to keep the kids clean. Have them decorate a plain white sheet to leave as a gift for the birthday girl. Great artsy games include Left Foot Art, Paint the Nose on the Clown, and Blind Van Gogh.
You can also have finger painting, bead bracelets, and sidewalk chalk. To end the party, set palettes with different color icing so the girls can decorate their own cupcakes.
9. Princess Party
Create a royal ball for your little princess with a chair decorated to look like a throne and a purple carpet for guests to arrive upon.
As is fit for royalty, you can set up a tea party for the princesses with pink lemonade, finger sandwiches, fruit balls, chocolates, and petit fours. Play with bubbles and decorate crowns and scepters.
You can also have each child decorate a pillowcase with fabric paint, writing “Princess (name of girl)” for them to take home. Princess party games include Pass the Royal Parcel, Princess Freeze Tag, and Pretty-Pretty Princess.
10. Barnyard Fun
Red checkered tablecloths, bandanas, cowboy hats, and your own mini barn are all you need to turn the backyard into a barnyard.
Amazon even has affordable bales of hay to complete the look. Everyone loves animals, and a barnyard party will not be complete without a petting zoo. Guests can pet animals and ride in some cases, paint animal masks, decorate cowbell necklaces and animal cookies.
Great barnyard games include Pin the Tail of the Donkey, Animals on the Loose, Pig Out, and Animal Charades. Snack ideas that fit the theme include candy apples, pig muck (chocolate pudding), moo cream, animal crackers, and chick feed (Chex mix and candy corn).
9 Backyard Birthday Party Ideas For 10 Year Old Boys
Ten year old boys are going to be active, so the more activities you have the better. A party does not have to be elaborate to be fun and with any of these fun themes below, your son will have a birthday bash to remember.
1. Backyard Camping
Plan this party for the afternoon and overnight to get a true camping experience. Set up tents in the yard or just use sleeping bags if it is not going to be cold.
Organize a scavenger hunt, camping bingo, and target practice for during the daylight hours and of course grill up some hot dogs for dinner and make s’mores for dessert. Some other fun evening activities can include glow in the dark bowling and flashlight hide-n-seek.
You can also have the boys make their own lanterns using glow sticks and mason jars found on Amazon. Gather blankets around for spooky stories before bed.
2. Nerf Zone
Boys and Nerf go together like peanut butter and jelly. A Nerf Wars game will be a big hit and is easy to plan. Set up Nerf targets all around the yard. You can buy some at Amazon or make your own.
Cut pool noodles into pieces and stick bullseyes on them. You also want to have forts and bases around the yard for the boys to hide in and behind. You can create camouflage coverings by spray painting cardboard boxes.
Make sure there is a Nerf gun for everyone (have the boys bring their own if they have any) and plenty of ammo. Place a few buckets around the yard with darts. They can play as teams, individuals, or have obstacle races to complete.
3. Football Fun
Set up the yard like a football training camp. Using hula hoops as targets, they can practice throwing and running several drills with playmates. Make sure at least one parent is dressed as a referee for authenticity.
A watermelon helmet bowl should be the food centerpiece and nachos, hot dogs, chips, pizza and wings are ideal football foods. Play a few games of flag football and include some inflatable players for extra practice time.
Make sure there are chairs and blankets around for game spectators and if you can get a cheerleader or two, even better. Play games like Referee Balloon Pop and Pass the Helmet and invite every child to come dressed in their favorite football jersey.
4. Water Playground
You don’t need a pool to have a fun water party. Load everyone up with squirt guns and water balloons for an all-out water fight. Play water balloon towel toss, water balloon basketball, and sponge ball relay.
Of course, there needs to be a slip-n-slide as well as some fun sprinkler toys to run through. Tug of war over a kiddie pool with some ice cubes as well as Musical sprinkler freeze are also popular games for water parties.
5. Carnival Party
Set up the tents and load the yard up with all the best carnival games found on Amazon. Balloon dart pop, bag toss, sack races, ring toss, can game, and disc drop.
Set up a photo booth with props to capture some memories and let the boys get face paint and temporary tattoos. If the weather’s nice, you can even set up your own version of a dunk tank.
Section off a space to serve as the booth and let players throw water balloons at the chosen target. Serve hot dogs, burgers, Snow cones, popcorn, and funnel cupcakes. You can even invite a petting zoo and a clown.
6. Laser Tag
This one involves buying laser tag equipment, but if the group of guests is not too large, this is a great party idea for boys. Amazon has affordable equipment, and all you need to do is set the yard up as a laser tag arena.
This party is better for evening celebrations and you can set up black lights, neon lights and glow sticks for added effect.
Pizza is a great choice for food and as for games, you can have obstacle courses and play popular laser games such as Laser Triangle, Capture the Flag, and Survivor.
7. Angry Birds
To decorate for an Angry Birds party use balloons and streamers that are the main theme colors of red, yellow, and green. Collect and stack cardboard boxes around the yard to serve as targets to be knocked down using colored hand balls.
You can even paint green piggies on the cardboard boxes. For warmer weather you can have a water balloon fight using balloons of the main theme colors.
Make both Angry Bird pizzas and sandwiches using bagels, pigs in a blanket, as well as Angry Bird cupcakes. Candy corn is perfect for beaks and chocolate chips make tasty eyes. Throw in a Angry Bird pinata, and play Egg Toss, Angry Bird Egg Hunt, and Capture the Egg.
8. Minecraft Party
You can create the Minecraft world by making your own cubes or buying some Minecraft blocks. Add a few creepers for effect.
Guests can make their own masks using pieces of colored paper that you have already cut into small squares. Fill large buckets with plastic candy-filled eggs to be labeled as Emeralds (green eggs) and Diamonds (blue eggs).
Rice Krispy treat balls with black food coloring make perfect lumps of coal, cubes of cheese can be lava, and pretzels are great sticks. As for games, Creeper Dodgeball, Musical Blocks, Light the TNT, and Enderdragon vs. Splash Potions are winners.
9. Games Galore
Bring all the classics to the backyard for a full day of gaming fun. Giant versions of all the favorites like Jenga, Horseshoes, Twister, Bowling, Connect4, Checkers and Dominoes are easy to buy.
Set up an obstacle race for the boys to compete in and make sure there are medals for the winners. Additional game ideas can include Hula Hoop Toss, silly sack races, three-legged races, and Frisbee tic-tac-toe.
Helpful Tips For The Best Backyard Birthday Party Ideas For 10 Year Olds
Whichever theme you decide to go with, your 10 year old is sure to have a great birthday. Before you start getting things set up, there are a few helpful tips to remember.
- Be sure to remove anything dangerous out of the party area
- If you have any pets, make sure they are out of the way as not all kids like animals.
- Check with all parents to confirm if there are any allergies or dietary restrictions before picking the party menu.
Final Thoughts
The backyard is a convenient and great place for a birthday setting and it saves you money. The best part of using your yard is that it is essentially a blank canvas. No matter what the theme, you can transform your backyard into anything from a campground or beach to a fairy garden.
We hope this guide helps you come up with ideas for your next birthday party. These themes, games, and food ideas are guaranteed to be a hit. With our top backyard birthday party ideas for 10 year olds, your kids will definitely be giving you ten out of ten for fun.