EPIC Kung Fu Panda Party! Ideas, games & fun
Hello and welcome to this post with ideas and inspiration for how to create an epic Kung Fu panda party for your little one! I share ideas for games, activities and Kung Fu Panda decorations.
I’m Zoe and before blogging, I worked as a professional kid’s party host. I created Parties Universe to share creative ideas for budget-friendly kids’ parties for a super exciting day for your little one and their friends!
Kung Fu Panda Party Games
In this party, the main event is the adventure activity but some quick-fire games can be a fun way to bring the group together in between!
1. Noodles Noodles Burger!
In the movie, Po works in his goose father Mr. Ping’s noodle shop where they’ve sold nothing but noodles for generations! This game is like duck duck goose, but a Mr. Ping version!
It’s a great game that is most likely familiar to children so they can get going straight away. It’s a nice one to set them up with as children are arriving one by one as it’s easy to join and get the hang of quickly. It also requires minimum supervision so you are free to welcome to guests and greet their parents.
2. Shifu Footsteps
In this game, pandas practise their stealth sneaking. The game is like grandmother footsteps but the premise is that the kids have to sneak out without being seen by Shifu- the tough training master!
It is a fun and familiar game that allows the children to be a bit sneaky and mischievous.
3. Musical duck!
This game is like musical statues but rather than freezing when the music stops, children need to do a Kung Fu ‘duck’ as though ducking beneath a blow from their opponent.
You can add a variation where children need to duck whenever you hit a big saucepan with a spoon and make a clanging sound.
Encourage them to do the craziest funniest dancing they can, and keep up the fun-spririt of a party at this point.
Kung Fu Panda Adventure Activities
We have a series of activities that can build together for an exciting party adventure narrative for the kids.
Firstly they will go on an epic treasure hunt (see 1. below) in the fantasy wuxia land of ancient China. They have to find the ancient scroll with the secret of Kung Fu on it.
This ancient, magical scroll will contain a link to the secret Kung Fu stances (see 2. below) which the kids can practise alongside a video. The video also explains that there are 18 skills to becoming a Kung Fu expert – are the kids up for the challenge of becoming king fu masters?!
This sets the scene for the obstacle course training exercise of the party where the kids can don their panda masks and go on a Kung Fu panda theme agility course (see 3. below) and collectively have to win 18 skills points before the group are collective champions!
Once they have completed it, there is a celebration- a Kung Fu style disco! (see 4. below) You can initiate the kid’s dance in a circle and take it in turns to go into the middle and perform a Kung Fu style dance move (as you might for a break-dance move typically!)
1. Epic Kung Fu Panda Treasure Hunt!
A treasure hunt is always a super-fun part of a birthday party- and this one compliments the story perfectly!
Children can search for clues that join together to reveal the location of the secret ancient scroll! This scroll can be made before the party- and can have a message like this on it:
“Dear Pandas,
You have uncovered the Ancient scroll of Kung Fu wisdom and now have all the tools you need to become Kung Fu masters. This is a big challenge and an honour. With great honour comes great responsibility. We ask you to use your new-found skills wisely, and only for good.
To uncover how, please see the [enclosed USB] or [enclosed QR code].
With great trust and faith,
Your ancient spirit guides of the Dragon Warrior”
Children can cheer when they find it, and you can help them either scan the QR code or insert the USB into a computer. (This can be a real or fake QR/USB if you don’t know how to do it. The main thing is you take out a laptop- or use a monitor or screen to be able to play a special ancient video. You can have it pre-loaded to make life easier and pretend to scan the code.)
2. Secret Kung Fu stance lesson!
This could be a very cute part of the party. We’ve especially selected a video that looks old and mysterious. It’s in Chinese with subtitles, so we suggest one of the adults reads the subtitles aloud so the children can concentrate of copying the moves.
This is the video:
It is 46 minutes long but it has time stamps in the comments so it’s easy to only select certain parts to watch. Play the intro where he explained there are 18 skills needed to become masters, and then choose 2 or 3 stances for the children to copy. We suggest bow-stance, on-horse stance and rooster-stance.
Be sure to encourage the children- and praise them for how good the stances look. AND DEFINITELY have someone on hand to photograph this section- it will be mega cute!
3. Kung Fu Panda agility course!
Here, the aim of this section is for the children to train and become Kung Fu masters! To do this, they need to gain 18 skills points. For this, we suggest cutting 18 circles out of yellow card with blue-tac that they can stick on a skills sheet- or buying 18 simple stickers that they can put on a chart and count up to 18.
The aim is to let the children achieve all 18 … so figure out the best strategy to ration them out over the course of the activities.
You can split the children into little groups and have them rotate around these obstacle challenges. For each they complete, children could earn one or two skills points so that the total becomes 18 (or make the total 16 and add two exciting bonus points)
Here are some of the activities you can create:
- Aim practice: get kids to stand behind a line and throw matches into a shoe box.
- Scent practice: have 3 opaque Tupperware and have the children blindfolded smell the contents. Fill two with coffee and one with lemon. Children have to identify the lemon one. Then see if they can do it again once you mix up the boxes. Or change the lemon to crayons or milk and try again.
- Agility training: Lay out some obstacles and have kids navigate through them in different ways: hopping, jumping, skipping etc.
- Memory practice: This is Kim’s game. Have some household items on a tray covered with a cloth. Let the children see the tray and study it for 30 seconds and then cover it back up and try and have then remember everything on the tray.
You will need more adults to help with this section so we suggest seeing if any of the other parents can stay and help. This is also a great thing for older siblings to help with, or grandparents, aunts and uncles!
4. Kung Fu Master Celebration disco!
Choose a perfect playlist, use some sort of flashy disco item (we suggest a mirror ball for this one as it feels like an other-worldly atmosphere) and let the kids have a great party!
We suggest dancing with them and getting them to form a circle and take it in turns to go into the middle and perform their best Kung Fu dance moves!
If you need inspiration for disco music, try some electronic Chinese dance music as a change from the songs the kids generally listen to. You could try this Chinese electro remix DJ track on youtube, or select your own. You can also play tracks from amazing the Kung Fu Panda soundtrack here.
Decorations
This is a really fun party to decorate for! Here are the top 5 tips to decorate for a Kung Fu panda party that allow maximum atmosphere but for minimum effort. In other words: bold and simple!
- Kung Fu costume props! Having a decoration that the kids can interact with will really heighten their imaginations and create a very exciting atmosphere. For this, we suggest either a panda mask, and/or some orange or yellow fabric that you can help them tie as a Kung Fu headband and which they can wear during the training course!
- Orange and Black Balloons! We think balloons are the most uplifting, fun and celebratory party decorations available. They are also very affordable, so win-win! Create massive bunches of orange and black balloons and hang them all around the room.
- Kung Fu Panda Cut Out When the character of a party theme is so well-known and well-loved, we like having some imagery the kids can look at and be inspired by. This is a pretty affordable cut-out Po character which could be a really fun addition if it’s within your budget!
- Music! It sounds like a funny decoration tip but music can create an atmosphere like nothing else and Kung Fu Panda soundtrack is fantastic! Play the theme song as the children arrive to create atmosphere, and use the music as background atmosphere during snack times too!
- Food decorations: Having some theme references in the food and snacks is a lovely way to introduce the theme and is also semi-interactive for the kids. We love these inexpensive cupcake toppers that you could stick into any snacks you like!
Good luck!
We hope you’ve enjoyed some of these ideas and feel inspired to get going in the Kung-Fu-Panda-planning journey. We have a post about all the steps with a kids’ party planning checklist that might help you with the next few stages if you’d like to check it out.
Otherwise, enjoy the process, take on only what feels manageable to you, and remember the most important thing is for your kids to feel special and feel your presence on this lovely occasion.
Best of Luck, Zoe x
