Funky Bowling Birthday Party

I have been sharing some of my own Kids Birthday Parties so I would like to share another one I did for my son when he was 8. For this party he wanted a Bowling Party, but to me every one did the same old thing.

I of course like to do things differently than the normal so we had a Funky Bowling Party – I wanted his party to stand out from all the others.  I was lucky enough to be able to rent a Bowling Alley for the party at out local Fire Hall so we had the whole place to ourselves, but you can take some of these ideas and use them at any Bowling Alley.

So forget the normal way of bowling – that is just boring. Let me help you make your Bowling Party stand out and be different than all the others. So here we go…… Being my party was at a Fire Hall all my party decor was based on Bowling and also Fire – so I incorporated flames on all my items as well as Balloons in Red, Orange and Yellow.  I also did Glow Bowling where the lights were out and the lanes glowed – this is available at most Bowling Alleys now as well. Kids really like this. I am going to jump around a bit so be sure to read this post to the end to get the entire party plan. I have also added a slide show at the end of the post for you to see.

So to get started you need to plan it out. First what I did was to come up with Funky ways the kids would have to bowl for each frame. Each game of bowling has 10 frames.  Once I had all of that planned out I made a sheet on Word laying it all out, I then printed them so each team would have a copy at their lane to follow.  So lets say Frame 1 says they must Bowl with their Opposite Hand – then all the guests bowling in Frame 1 must do that. So if you bowl with your right you must now bowl with your left. May sound easy, but it is not and it is also very funny to watch.  I also had small prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd highest scores for this game.  Also note teams may not be on the same frame at the same time depending on how fast they play and how many are on each team – so they must keep track. Oh and one more thing – Have those Cameras Handy!! So here was my Funky Bowling Frame by Frame:

1. With Opposite Hand
2. Between Legs
3. Normal
4. On one Leg
5. Backwards between Legs
6. Normal
7. Sitting on the Floor
8. Between 3 Teammates Legs – 3 players line up and the ball gets bowled through their legs
9. Doing a Funky Dance
10. In Slow Motion

Now as the guests arrived to the party I gave them each a Name Tag (with some cute Flame Graphics). I am big with name tags at my parties for many reasons – One being I do not always know who every one is and it is better to call someone by name then “Hey You”.2 – I know who is there and who is yet to come and 3 – it helps the kids be able to call each other by name if they do not know each other.  In addition to that I gave each a Glow Necklace and Bracelet – adds some extra fun to Glow Bowl. Lastly I gave each child a Whistle Necklace to wear (will explain below).

Once all the Guests got their bowling shoes I gathered them together to explain the rules of this party. I told them for the first 10 Frames of bowling we were going to be doing Funky Bowl and for the second 10 Frames we would be doing Bowling Bingo (explained below) – Most Bowling parties allow the kids to play 2 games, that is all up to you.  Now What are the Whistles for? Well I created a game called The Striker for the party. What I did before the party was take a Posterboard and drew some cool pictures of a Bowling Ball eating the pins with some flames of course, I hung this up in the party area. In addition to that I found this great Funky Hat that had flames and balls on the ends with LEDs that lit up to go with the game.  So here is how this works – When one of the guests bowled a Strike they blew their whistle and then they got to wear the Funky Hat until someone else bowled a Strike. Then their name was written on the Posterboard and if they got more than one Strike I just added marks to keep track. So when each guest got a Strike their names were placed on the board and the guest who bowled the most at the end of the party received a prize. I had prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd. If there was a tie for first at the end of the party we had a Bowl Off where they got to bowl one frame and which ever guest had the higher number of pins knocked down won. TIP: I also made sure all the kids knew that if they blew their Whistle for any other reason they lost it. This game added another fun element the kids loved and The Striker was very proud to wear the Funky Hat.

Now let me explain what I did for the second bowling game – Bowling Bingo.  For this you need to have some Bingo Cards. For this I created my own, but you can create some of your own by visiting my post here: FREE Printable Bingo Cards.  Give a Bowling Bingo Card to each Team along with some stickers they can use to cover their numbers. I use the round circle garage sale stickers – they work perfect and they are cheap. Also when creating your Bingo Cards add in Gutter, Strike  and Split on some of the spaces too – make sure no card is the same (if you are using Bumpers – do not add Gutter).  I also had 2 sets of cards printed in case we needed more if the games went quickly. Here is how it works:

Every team gets a Bingo card and their stickers to use as the markers. The middle square is a free space – so have the teams put a marker on that space first. Use the total of each frame to come up with the number to cover on the bingo card. For example: Johnny is up and takes his turn on his first roll he gets a 1 on the second roll he gets a 3 for a total of 4 – put a sticker on the number 4 if you have one on the card. If what they bowled is not there then nothing is done and the next player bowls. To win the team must get a regular bingo by getting all the squares in a row either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. When they fill all spaces required for a bingo they must yell BINGO. You can let the team each choose a prize. Now they can keep those cards and proceed to a full card bingo – where they must fill in all the spaces on the card. When all spaces are full – then once again they must yell BINGO and you can award prizes. In the event of a tie have a bowl off – each team chooses a player to bowl – let them each bowl one frame and which ever bowls the highest wins. I also had some small prizes each team could choose from when they won.

The kids had so much fun playing these Bowling Games at the party and because it was so different from a regular Bowling Birthday Party they remember it and still talk about it. One thing I would do if you are having your party in the Bowling Alley is to check to make sure that having Whistles is OK. I do not see a problem, but I would just check.

The prizes I chose were random and chosen the night before at Walmart due to Oriental Trading not getting me my order on time due to a mess up. That was crazy and boy was I mad. I had ordered some really cool draw sting Flame Bags for the favors and some other neat stuff, but I ended up having to re think and plan last minute. So order all your items way in advance. I ended up taking colored lunch bags and writing each guests name on them and filling them with some small toys. It has been so long I can’t remember what was in them – I do know I had the Mini Bowling Sets in them. I also used one of these sets on my Bowling Alley Birthday Cake. You can also visit Amazon to see all the Bowling Party Supplies – they have lots of great items and lots of fun Bowling related favors/prizes and paper goods.

For the Birthday Cake we created a Bowling Lane Cake. Now it did not come out perfect and there was a nice bump on our alley, but the kids did not care about that. They all loved it just as it was and did not even notice. You can visit my post How to make a Bowling Lane Cake to see Step by Step Instructions. I am sure you can make one level unlike mine – lol.

So there you have it – A great way to change up a Bowling Party. Leave me some comments and let me know what you think. You may also like my other Bowling Party Post:  Bowling Pin Sipper Bottle – they make great Party Favors. Now you can enjoy a Photo Slide show of some highlights from my son’s 8th Funky Bowling Birthday Party.