If you are anything like me and want your precious birthday boy or girl to enjoy their special day in the fresh air, away from the stale, recycled air in a mall or a fast-food restaurant, then why not try a park?

A park can be an amazing location for a birthday party, even in the middle of a large city. It gives you the freedom and space to organise a number of different activities to get kids working or playing together, being active and generally having the time of their lives. And as a mother who longs to get her kids out of the choking, smog-filled city, I can tell you that fresh air is a very nice bonus!

Basic instructions to kids

I organised my daughter’s 9th birthday party in Mumbai’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park. We made it a day-long outing and included a number of fun-filled activities including a ‘Treasure Hunt’.

You don’t even have to spend a lot of money to organise a full-day event. All it takes is creativity and patience (and plenty of it!). Put in some thought, let your creative juices flow, and take my word for it – your birthday boy/girl will have the time of their lives.

You can send invites with dress codes (birthday kid should be given different code to make him/her feel special).

Dress code invite

I arranged a ‘picnic-style’ bus to ferry all the kids and their parents to the National Park. Kids usually enjoy travelling together, especially if they can play games and sing along to peppy music. Make sure you have plenty of food and drinks to keep the kids’ energy levels high! I got some custom made boxes with Idli, chutney, Banana and a small tetra pack of juice.

I also printed Tshirts with kids names and gave them beforehand so that on the day of event everyone was in the same Tshirt. I had 

Logo was printed on front left handside corner

Names were printed at the back

We started at 7.00 am. The assembly point was School so that its easy for parents to drop their kids.

Mumbai’s National Park (Sanjay Gandhi National Park) covers a large area of over 100 square kilometers; and is home to several wild animals including leopards and spotted deer. Since both my kids love animals, I included a ‘safari’ tour early in the day. The bus slowly wound its way through the park and its wildlife areas, and the kids squealed as one, every time they saw a leopard or deer. None of them were expecting anything like this, and they were absolutely delighted! While the kids went for safari, a few volunteer moms and me hid all the clues for the next event – Treasure hunt! 

I divided the kids in 3 groups with 1 adult  in each group as a guide. I chose chart paper in four colours – green, blue, yellow  – and cut out ¾”-wide wrist-bands from them.Using glue, I stuck the two ends of each band together to form a ready-to-wear child-sized bracelet. Since my treasure hunt involved groups, each group was assigned one colour.

Now they just had to start with finding their color clues in the park.

Let the hunt begin! The birthday girl team won it in the end… and believe me nothing was fixed 🙂

The elated winning team

After an exhausting treasure hunt, we then took the kids riding on the park’s ‘toy train’. Put a bunch of kids on a tiny, slow-moving train, and you get utter chaos, but the squeals of joy and wide-eyed wonder brought smiles on the faces of all the adults. 

Waiting for vanrani train

The final event was birthday cake. I couldnt run around the national park with a cake so I decided to make cupcakes and put candles on them for cake cutting in the park.

cupcakes in the park

Later we all got in the bus and left for Pizaa express closer to school for lunch for the last activity of the day – pizza making! They were thrilled to make their own pizzas and eat them.

When it comes to birthdays kids eagerly wait for return gifts. I had announced earlier in the day that The T-shirts that I made and gave them were return gifts for them 🙂

 It took a whole lot of planning and organising, but surprisingly didn’t cost a lot of money as a banquet birthday would. This is what I love about kids – they don’t usually care about expensive gifts or fancy parties. Arrange something fun and memorable, and their smiles will tell you that your efforts were all worth it!