A space themed party for kids whether for a birthday, sleepover, or a whatever party can be great fun, especially if they are into space.

Invitations

You can make them using clip art on the computer or have the kids make them by hand.  Send out a couple weeks before party.  Make sure you give address and directions to party, as well as phone number for parents to call to RSVP or if they get lost.

Food

Some think the decorations are most important, while others think the activities are the most important part of a kid’s party.  Although all are important, personally I think the food is most important.  You do not want to deal with a bunch of hungry kids.  Believe me they are the toughest.

Below is a suggested menu, but of course you should try to tailor it to the preferences to your child and the other children attending (if you know their preferences).

Main dish:  Make peanut butter and jelly star sandwiches.  You can even set up a sandwich making buffet with the bread precut with a cookie cutter into stars.  Offer various sandwich fillers such as peanut butter, jelly, mayonaisse, lunch meat, and tuna.

Sides:

Asteroids: I like using cheese balls, but many kids do not like them, so you can do Peanut Butter Balls instead.  Remember they are supposed to represent asteroids so they do not have to be perfectly round.  Let your kid help you make these.

Freeze Dried Food: These can be purchased at camping stores and science stores, such as Discovery Channel Store, as well as at Museum shops.  Below is an example pic of the packaged dehydrated food.


Moon Cheese: You can buy swiss cheese and put on a platter perhaps with some crackers.  An alternative is to make holes in slices of other cheese.

Cake:  One can be ordered space themed from most local grocery stores.  You can of course make one using you kids favorite cake mix.  Decorate it with small space toys such as astronauts, spaceships, moons, and stars (Glow-in-the-dark ones are fun).  One unique way to do it is to make a dome shaped cake (dome or sports ball cakes can be found at many craft stores or in the baking aisle of your local grocery store).  Decorate the dome shaped cake to represent the Earth, the moon, or another planet.

Drinks:  Tang is perfect for a space themed party, as it was originally developed for use by astronauts.

Decorations

Have the kid(s) help make the decorations.  You can have them draw and cut out comets, planets (some examples Earth drawing below), moons, stars, and/or spaceships to be put up around the party area.  You can also find related coloring pages for them to color.  You can add streamers and balloons, too.


Starry Sky: Use some glow-in-the-dark stars and planet shapes to turn the party area into a night sky with stars when the lights are turned off.  Example set up is pictured below,


Centerpiece: Make a dome shaped centerpiece representing Mars.  Add aliens made out of cardboard or purchased at the toy store.  You could even add a mars rover.

Activities

Moon Bounce: Depending on your party budget you can rent a moon bounce thing for the kids to play in.  If you already have a trampoline, that can also work.

Alien Puppets:  Provide the kids with old socks or paper bags to make their own puppets.  Also provide a variety of art supplies such as markers, construction paper, and glitter glue.  When they are done let them put on a show.

Pin the Flag in the Astronaut's Hand: Draw an astronaut on the moon on a large piece of paper.  Make little flags and cut them out.  You can either make the flags on sticker paper or use tape to make them stick to the paper.  Make sure you make some indication of whose flag is whose attempt of putting it in the Astronaut's hand.  You can number them or put the attendees names on the flag pieces.

Space Movie Marathon:  This works great if the party is also a sleepover.  You can also just show one movie that fits in with you time limit of the party.  Some possible movies include Treasure Planet and Muppets in Space.