They may snort fire and wave their spiky tails, but dragons also love a good party. Invite them to your birthday and watch the fury trun to fun with these dragon-themed party ideas.
1. Invitations
One idea for dragon-themed invitations is to print free dragon coloring pages, then cut out the images and use them to trace the dragon shape onto cardstock. Cut the invitations into dragon shapes, or color in and decorate the image on the front of the invitation. For the text, wording could read something like:Calling all dragons!
You’re invited to a fire-breathing birthday party!
So shake your tails on over to Johnny’s house.
Cake-slaying is more fun with friends, so we hope you can be there!
2. Decorations
Image ©Christine Gauvreau
A combination of store-bought and homemade dragon decorations can help turn your party space into a dragon's lair.
- Dragon party hats: To make your own dragon party hats, simply print dragon clipart images (these can be found at free clipart sites or in the images file of your computer) onto printer paper in a color that matched your party theme. Cut the images out and paste them onto the front of solid-colored cone hats.
- Scales: Cut long lengths of poster board into scale shapes and layer them make dragon-scale party banners.
- Inflatable dragons, which can be purchased from party supply stores, make cute tabletop and hanging decorations. You could also look for inflatable dragon pool toys, or a dragon kiddie-pool. Whether you choose to fill it with water and let the kids splash inside, fill it with ice and use as a cooler or simply blow it up and use it as a decoration, this item makes a cool, backyard party prop for any dragon-themed party.
- Balloon dragons. With googly eyes, paper flames and ribbon legs, you can quickly turn squiggly balloons into dragons.
- Dragon party horns.
- Dragon caves: Use play tents, pop-up tents, or even teepee’s made of sheets to add “dragon caves” to your party space.
- Signs: Use poster board, chalkboard or even washable spray paint to mark different party areas with dragon-inspired names. At our dragon party, for instance, the buffet area was called The Dragon Cafe, and the tent-caves were called The Dragonfire Den and Long Tail’s Lair.
- Dragon footprints: cut the shapes of dragon footprints out of cardstock and tape them to the floor, or make a template out of cardboard and use spray chalk to add dragon footprints to your yard.
3. Food
Image ©Christine Gauvreau
In addition to the birthday child’s favorite party food, suggestions for dragon party menu items include:
- Dragon scale pizza (pepperoni pizza).
- Dragaroni and cheese (or any macaroni dish that can be named “dragaroni”).
- Dragon tails (pretzel rods, dipped in chocolate with “sprinkle spikes”).
- Dragon cake.
- Dragon eggs: Egg shaped foods, such as cake balls shaped like eggs, chocolate eggs or cookies made with an egg-shaped cutter.
- Dragon scale chips (nacho chips)
- Dragon tail curls (cheese curls)
- Dragon Melon: watermelon carved into a dragon.
- Dragonfire potion: Pour any flavor of red, powdered juice mix into a potion bottle (found in craft stores). Label it “dragonfire potion.” Provide bottles of water, labeled, “dragonfire juice.” Shake the magic powder into the water bottles, replace the caps, and have kids shake their bottles to make their own, magic, dragonfire juice.
4. Games
Image ©Christine Gauvreau
Everyone knows dragons love to play! Keep those spiked tails wagging with some of these fun ideas for party games and crafts.
Dragon wing relay race:
Cut the shapes of two pairs of dragon wings out of cardboard. Divide players into two teams and give each team a set of wings. Racers must hold their wings on their backs (or over their heads, if too difficult for small kids) and pretend to “fly” to the finish line and then back to their teams, where they hand the wings off to the next player in line. The relay race continues until all players have taken a turn at flying.
Teams can even decorate their dragon wings with items like colored markers, glitter and stickers, before the race begins.
Catch the dragon’s tail:
Have party guests form a single line, with each players hands on the waist of the person in front of them. The front of the line is the head of the dragon, and the back is the tail. The idea is for the person at the front of the line to tag the last person in line, therefore catching “the tail.” Players must not let go of the players ahead of them during the chase.
Dragon tail spray:
If the weather permits, a snake-style sprinkler makes a fun, "spraying dragon's tail."
Dragon egg hunt:
Hide plastic Easter eggs around the party space and send kids on a hunt for these “dragon’s eggs.”
Sand box dragons:
Build a sand castle in a children’s sand box (or baby pool filled with play sand). Add toy dragons -- and plenty of shovels and buckets for rebuilding after those dragons storm the castle.
Cake slaying:
Slaying dragon cake is almost as fun as eating it, so invite guests to gather around the dessert table and take a stab at their slice of cake. Tie small pieces of different colored ribbon to the stems of your cake forks. Give each child a fork, and once the birthday song and candle-blowing is done, tell them to “stab” the piece of dragon they would like to eat (the birthday child gets the first stab, of course). Once all the forks have been staked into the dragon, the colored ribbons identify who has claimed each section of the cake.
Dragon Pinata.
Purchase a dragon pinata from a party supply store, or make your own with the papier mache method.
Dragon wing relay race:
Cut the shapes of two pairs of dragon wings out of cardboard. Divide players into two teams and give each team a set of wings. Racers must hold their wings on their backs (or over their heads, if too difficult for small kids) and pretend to “fly” to the finish line and then back to their teams, where they hand the wings off to the next player in line. The relay race continues until all players have taken a turn at flying.
Teams can even decorate their dragon wings with items like colored markers, glitter and stickers, before the race begins.
Catch the dragon’s tail:
Have party guests form a single line, with each players hands on the waist of the person in front of them. The front of the line is the head of the dragon, and the back is the tail. The idea is for the person at the front of the line to tag the last person in line, therefore catching “the tail.” Players must not let go of the players ahead of them during the chase.
Dragon tail spray:
If the weather permits, a snake-style sprinkler makes a fun, "spraying dragon's tail."
Dragon egg hunt:
Hide plastic Easter eggs around the party space and send kids on a hunt for these “dragon’s eggs.”
Sand box dragons:
Build a sand castle in a children’s sand box (or baby pool filled with play sand). Add toy dragons -- and plenty of shovels and buckets for rebuilding after those dragons storm the castle.
Cake slaying:
Slaying dragon cake is almost as fun as eating it, so invite guests to gather around the dessert table and take a stab at their slice of cake. Tie small pieces of different colored ribbon to the stems of your cake forks. Give each child a fork, and once the birthday song and candle-blowing is done, tell them to “stab” the piece of dragon they would like to eat (the birthday child gets the first stab, of course). Once all the forks have been staked into the dragon, the colored ribbons identify who has claimed each section of the cake.
Dragon Pinata.
Purchase a dragon pinata from a party supply store, or make your own with the papier mache method.
5. Favors
Image ©Christine Gauvreau
Treat bags can be made by drawing a dragon on solid-colored, paper party bags. You can have kids decorate their loot bags as a party activity, and then fill them with goodies such as candy, dragon stickers and dragon tattoos, or if you choose to have a pinata, fill them with the treats from that.
Additional ideas for dragon party favors include:
Additional ideas for dragon party favors include:
- Plush dragons.
- Dragon figurines.
- Dragon story books.
- Dragon coloring pages.
