Soccer Birthday Ideas

by Elijah H.
(Cameron, West Virginia)

We decided on a World Cup soccer birthday party theme for my son's most recent birthday. We bought table cloths with different flags on them and made a paper mache "World Cup" which was filled with candy. We also set up a soccer goal net that was used for the games.

As far as food was concerned, we had a soccer themed cake and popcorn balls with little raisins in them, that made them appear like actual soccer balls. Also we offered a variety of mutil-national food to keep with the World Cup theme.

For example, we had "French" fries with a little flag of France sticking out of the basket, some English Toffee with flag, Brazilian nuts, Suiss chocolate and so forth.

World Cup Soccer Birthday Ideas for Games

We set up a simple soccer goal net and had the kids play a game to see whoever could put the most goals in the net as a contest. For the prize, we gave away the paper mache "World Cup" filled with candy that we had made.

We also used the soccer net during the presents. We brought all the presents outside by the net and had our son kick the soccer ball into the net. Every time our son would kick the ball into the net, all the kids would cheer and he would get to open a present. This was a really fun way to open all the presents!
Things We'd Change

Once it started to get hot outside, we decided to let the children play a World Cup themed video game in order to keep them from obtaining sunburn. This I would say did not work as well, it probably caused more fights than anything. I would not suggest this for such a young age group. It would work better if there was a time limit set so every kid could play for 5 minutes.

The birthday party would probably be better suited for a little higher age group than 6 to 8 year olds since some kids did not get the concept completely, but it is what our son wanted.

He loved it and the other kids had a good time, but most of the theme seemed to be a little over their heads. I'm not sure most of them have ever watched the World Cup, or know why we had the international elements in the party.

I know we'll do this soccer theme again when he's a little older. I think it would be perfect for kids from 10 to 12 and for teen boys as well.

All in all the kids enjoyed kicking the ball around and trying the different types of food offered. Next time, I'll have more activities set up for the indoors. It got too hot outside after a few hours, and we relied too heavily on the video game as the indoor activity. I'll research more soccer birthday ideas before we do this one again!

Categories: Sports Birthday Party Ideas, Birthday Party Ideas