SpongeBob SquarePants Theme Party Ideas
This is the PartyOz guide to the perfect SpongeBob SquarePants Theme Party with all the ettiquette, ideas, costumes and party games.
Invitations Suggestions
SpongeBob himself is… well, a sponge. Why not purchase some cheap yellow sponges from a discount store, glue some plastic eyes and your invite to it. Decorate it by painting on a toothy smile and some brown pants.
Alternatively, create numerous cardboard invitations in the shape of SpongeBob and his friends (a starfish, squid, crab, snail, squirrel, fish, etc - for pictures and descriptions of SpongeBob and his friends, click here.
Purchase a large sheet of paper, or sticky-tape several large pieces together, paint it in the style of the ocean and seabed (blue, green and yellow) and place it on a long wall, such as a hallway. Have each child decorate them (at the party or at their own homes), bring their invitation along to the party and and place them somewhere on the mural to create an aquatic scene your SpongeBob-adoring child will get to keep and love.
SpongeBob SquarePants’ Friends
Costume Suggestions
Anything hailing from the bottom of the sea will make a great costume.
SpongeBob wears brown shorts, a white shirt, a red tie, white socks (with a blue and red line) and black shoes. His skin is yellow with light brown spots, so paint your face yellow with brown pocks, and don’t forget those thick eyelashes!
A simple way to create your own SpongeBob SquarePants costume is to find a box large enough for you to fit in and paint it yellow with light brown pocks, along with brown shorts, etc.
Decoration Suggestions
SpongeBob lives inside a giant pineapple. Purchase a large sheet of cardboard and design a gigantic cut-out pineapple your guests have to walk through to enter the party.
A great decoration for the birthday table is… you guessed it, also a couple of pineapples! A great colour scheme for the cutlery, cups and plates is yellow, not only to match the pineapple but SpongeBob himself! Alternatively, as this is an underwater party, blue and green cutlery works too.
To create the effect of the ocean floor and Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob’s hometown, decorate the room by hanging long strips of blue, white and green crepe paper from the ceiling.
You can shade a lamp using blue cellophane (be sure to do it safely) to create the effect of an underwater playground. Several lamps with differing colours add the impression of varying depths, darker colours for the deepest ocean, lighter for those closer to the sandbanks.
For that extra touch, use the cellophane to line the windows as well. Green streamers placed strategically in the corners and about the room offer the impression of seaweed, and can prove a great place to find the odd treasure.
If you have the time, purchase a large sheet of green cardboard and create a set of goggles you can leave lying in the corner.
Another great decoration idea is to get lots of pink, purple and blue pipe cleaners and twist them together into the shape of jelly fish, crabs and other sea creatures. Let your imagination run! Glue some googly eyes on with some craft glue, and then hang them from the ceiling or around the party area.
Food Suggestions
Fish fingers, cheese tubes (call them worms, a fish-food favourite) and by cutting a sausage Frankfurt down the middle lengthways before cooking (not all the way, leave enough intact to hold the ends together) creates a tiny octopus.
Make a large bowl of green and blue jelly and fill it with gummy fish lollies, jelly worms or cubes of pineapple.
You can also make your own chips, slicing the potatoes and cutting them into relevant sea shapes such as starfish, fish, crabs, shells, and all things SpongeBob might find around his hometown Bikini Bottom.
SpongeBob works as a burger-flipper in Bikini Bottom's most popular restaurant The Krusty Krab. Why not spread out the ingredients to make delicious burgers and let the kids try their hand at making their own?
Games & Activities
SpongeBob lives at the bottom of the ocean, and so there are many bubbles floating around his home. Creating a bubble solution and giving the kids bubble wands is a great way to entertain them and give you a perfect opportunity to sit down, have a cuppa and rest your feet.
Here are a couple of bubble solutions (quantities will vary, depending on party size) which give you varying bubbles. Note that the inclusion of glycerine makes the solution thicker and the bubbles last longer. For a sturdier solution, prepare it the night before.
Basic Bubbles: 2 Tbsp detergent, 1 cup water
Sweet Bubbles: 1 Tbsp corn syrup, 2 Tbsp detergent, 1 cup water
Magic Bubbles: 1 Tbsp glycerine, 2 Tbsp dish soap, 9 oz water
Colour Bubbles: 1 cup liquid tempera paints, 2 Tbsp detergent, 1 Tbsp liquid starch
Thread a piece of string or yarn through two drinking straws and tie the ends of the string together. Using the straws as handles, stretch the string into shapes like rectangles or diamonds and immerse it into your solution. Straws by themselves also work well. Simply dunk one end and blow through the other. Be sure little ones don’t inhale!
Fly swatters will manufacture millions of tiny bubbles. Plunge into the liquid and spin around for a mini cyclone. Of course, you will want to supply an unused swatter to diminish the gross-out factor, even if your little bug-squasher balks!
Another obvious item is the sturdy yet manipulative wire clothes hanger. For smaller bubbles unwind the hanger and straighten out the wire. Loop a small section at one end and use the length as a handle. For more sizeable bubbles leave the hanger intact and simply stretch the opening into the desired shape. Uncoil the top of the hanger for a little grip. In both cases, wrap the ends with duct tape to cover sharp edges. Also, cotton cord wound around the wand will act as a wick, helping you to create bigger bubbles.
And speaking of bigger, for a grand finale how about a bubble your kids (or you!) can actually stand in? For this one you will need plenty of room and lots of bubble solution. Place something sizeable and sturdy enough for your child to stand on, such as a wooden board or small stool, into an empty kiddie pool. Fill the pool with a few inches of your bubble mixture and place a hula-hoop in it. Have your child stand on the board and carefully lift the hoop for a giant, kid-sized bubble. Or, if you are feeling industrious, design a pulley system by tying pieces of rope to four sides of the hoop and fastening them to another length of rope long enough to toss over a tree branch. Kids can then hoist the hoop over their heads.
It’s a good idea to test your bubble solution and instruments ahead of time to avoid the disappointment of bubble failures.
SpongeBob’s been working hard all day and wants to go home. The only thing stopping him is Mr Krabs standing at the exit. One child is chosen to be Mr Krabs and stand out the front with his back to the other children (the SpongeBobs). The Spongebobs stand on a line (the kitchen) then start to creep up behind Mr Krabs saying ‘What’s the time Mr Krabs?’ Mr Krabs can turn around and say 3 O’clock, or 6 o’clock or any time he likes and the SpongeBobs have to stand still. If Mr Krabs calls out Working Time the SpongeBobs have to run back to the line without getting caught. If they are caught they have to sit down on the line and are out. The child left at the end is the next Mr Krabs.
Sponge Sponge SpongeBob (Variation on Duck Duck Goose)Duck Duck Goose is a popular party game for young kids, so imagine what Sponge Sponge SpongeBob would be like to SpongeBob fans!
Sit all the kids in a circle then choose the birthday child to be ‘it’. He or she then has to walk around the outside of the circle tapping each of the other kids in turn lightly on the head, calling each “Sponge”. This goes on for a few moments until the child taps one of the children and adds a “Bob!” onto the end! This keeps everyone on their toes, as they’ll never know when the Bob will pop out.
At this point the ‘SpongeBob’ stands up and chases the birthday child around the circle trying to tag him or her before they return to the SpongeBob’s seat. If the birthday child is tagged then they are ‘it’ again. If not then the ‘SpongeBob’ becomes the next ‘it’ and starts the game again.
This can also be called Sponge Sponge Patrick, or any other variation using SpongeBob characters.
This is where the theme song to SpongeBob comes in handy. If you don’t have it on hand, click here for the SpongeBob Song and play it from a computer nearby. It’s approximately 25 seconds long, which should be good for a round and a bit, but if the music stops before you want it to, be ready to click on the play button again to keep it going. It also has the lyrics, so get the kids to sing along by joining in on a few choruses before you start.
Set up either two rows or a circle of chairs - one for each child. The kids then sit on the chairs and music started. When the music begins the kids all stand up and walk in a line around the row of chairs, meantime one chair is taken away.
When the music stops each child has to sit down on a free chair and the one without a chair is ‘out’. This continues until there are 2 kids left in the game but only one chair. The one who manages to sit on the last chair when the music stops is declared the winner and receives a small party prize.
Pass The Parcel.
Securing each layer with tape, wrap a small gift in lots of layers of paper. A more generous way of playing is to wrap a small prize in each layer, and strategically stop the music so that each child gets a prize. To play the game have the kids sit in a circle, play the SpongeBob theme song (if you’re not sick of it yet) then every now and again stop the music. The child holding the parcel when the music stops gets to unwrap a layer. Then start the music again and keep going until the last layer is reached and the grand prize is unwrapped.
Colour Your Own SpongeBobFor the creative types, you can print out some great SpongeBob SquarePants colouring pictures here for the kids to colour in:
http://www.spongebob.name/spongebob-color-pages.html
This website also has the SpongeBob SquarePants lyrics and tune, so the kids can sing along. This is a great song for a game of Pass the Parcel or Musical Chairs. There is also a store section from which the SpongeBob cd can be purchased if you want a bit of variety.
For more inspiration, try the following films:
Shark Tale
Finding Nemo
The Little Mermaid
Ocean Girl
Sea Quest
Atlantis
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
Readers Comments
Great party ideas! The bubbles were loads of fun, and my daughter still has the mural up on her wall! Thanks!
Anna M – (Adelaide)
Add your comment here
