How to Make a Children's Super Bowl Party

Children familiar with football may enjoy a Super Bowl party.

Although Super Bowl parties typically focus on adults, children are often around and feed off of the excitement that the adults feel, even if they don't fully understand the game. You can make a Super Bowl party more family-friendly or set the children up with their own small party in a different room from the adults, with decorations and Super Bowl-themed games and activities.

Things You'll Need

• Streamers
• Balloons
• Raffle tickets

Instructions

1. Send out football-themed invitations. You can send out invitations in the shape of a football or a football helmet. You can also send out invitations in the colors of the teams that are playing in the Super Bowl. Include the party details such as the time, date and location. Encourage kids to come dressed in the team colors or the jerseys of the team for which they are rooting.

2. Decorate the party space. Pick up streamers and balloons in the team colors from a party store. One way to decorate with the streamers is to twist the two colors for one team together and drape them from one corner of the ceiling to the opposite corner, and then do the same for the streamers in the other team's colors. Pin the streamers up in the middle with balloons, also in the team colors. Cover the snack table with a green table cloth to represent the football field. You can also decorate with bobble-head football players around the snack table.

3. Serve kid-friendly foods. Children can enjoy common Super Bowl snacks such as chicken wings, baked beans and chili, but make these foods mild, with very little spice. You can serve chips and dips, but include healthy snacks such as raw carrots and vegetables as well. Other kid-friendly foods to serve include mini pizzas, chicken nuggets, and burger sliders. For a football-themed dessert, use football-shaped cookie cutters to make football brownies.

4. Engage the children in small activities during commercials and half time. Give the children raffle prizes such as a plush toy football, team t-shirts or candy. During commercials, you can pick raffle winners. Give the kids a Super Bowl worksheet upon arrival with questions such as "Who will win the coin toss" and "Who will make the first touch down?" During half time, you can go over the first half questions and award a prize to the person with the most correct answers, and do it again at the end of the game. Another activity you can do during half-time is to have the children take turns hitting a football piñata filled with candy.

Tips & Warnings

• Have a second television in another room with tuned to children's programming or a children's movie to keep very young children occupied, as their short attention spans can make it hard to focus on a whole game.

Resources

• Food Network: Big Game Bash