Ultimate kid’s glow party ideas

Glow parties are the type of party theme that never gets outgrown! Whether this is a kiddie party, pre-teen, or teen birthday, the glowing and neon theme creates an exciting energy that will fill the party space with fun!

Glow parties (sometimes called dark parties) can be a fun way to mix glow fashion, with dance music and disco, elevated regular party games, and also create a sense of magic for the party guests, like a glowing neon wonderland.

This post suggests some of our best glow-in-the-dark party ideas including decorations, music, party favors and creative ideas for the best games and activities.

Glow party decoration ideas

For our ultimate guide to glow decorations, see this list below in order or what we think has the colest effect on the party atmosphere!

• A mix of LED light-filled balloons and neon-coloured balloons: If you have enough these look absolutely epic! Have a scroll on pinterest for some inspiration, I promise these are amazing! LED light balloon have an other worldly glow to them and will immediately elevate your party space. Meanwhile if there are less dark zones in the party neon balloons are bright and festive while somehow also being edgy and pretty cool.  
• A Black Light: Black light bulbs are easy to find, and inexpensive on Amazon. they can a purplish glow over a space, illuminating whites to create an amazing glow, while leaving other coloured unaltered.
• Fluorescent-coloured hanging lanterns: In a similar way to how epic the balloons can look, glowing LED lanterns create an amazing atmosphere in a party space! can a huge variety yo fo coours and string them up in a line for an amazing look. 
• Mirror ball: If you opt for a black light, a mirror ball can add an amazing, dynamic effect to the decorations. Shine a white light on it so you can see the deflections dancing around the room. It’s quite retro but in a very cool way!
• Neon streamers and confetti: Hang streamers above the food or central table and strew the table with neon confetti.
• Black tablecloth with disposable neon-coloured cups and plates: One of the most important design features of a glow party is having enough dark colours to make the neon pop. Use a black tablecloth with neon crockery and decorations, including little flags in the food, or neon labels on juice jugs and serving bowls!

Interactive decorations:

Interactive decorations are great fun, they are things that guests can interact with to become part of the staging and atmosphere. One of the main things about a glow party is the costume, so these make for perfect interactive decoration ideas!

• Glow sticks: Have glow sticks and glow glasses on hand for guests to decorate themselves with and string together as glow headbands, bracelets and necklaces. These are inexpensive and super fun to dance with and take photos in!
• Neon face painting station: Have a face pointing station for neon and glow-in-the-dark face designs!
• Neon body stickers: Have a selection of neon body stickers that the guests can have fun choosing and sticking! These are fun as they are non-committal but still add to the atmosphere!

Glow party games and activities

Here at Parties Unvierse we love parties with games, activities and things to do! Luckily the glow theme is a great way to add a super fun twist to some of our existing favourite party games and crowd pleasers!

Glow Games:

There are loads of fun games that work perfectly with a glowing twist to make them just that bit more exciting and magical! All of these ideas are things that can be purchased inexpensively online, but many of them can also be DIY’d for free!

• Limbo: Elevate the classic limbo game by giving your limbo stick a glow-up! For the stick you can use an old wrapping paper roll, the poll of a broomstick, or a pool noodle. To decorate it, you can use neon paints or glow paints from any craft store. If you have a black light, simply cover the stick in white paper or paint
• Glow-in-the-Dark Ring Toss: Create your own ring toss game by using glow sticks bent into a circular shape as rings and set up sticks to toss them onto. These sticks could be old paper towel rolls, or the inside rolls from wrapping paper. Paint them with neon paint for an exciting look! Kids can try and get a high score or work in teams to collectively toss more loop onto the sticks than opposing teams.
• Glow skittles: Save plastic drinking bottles, fill them with neon or glow paint and shake (with the cap on!) The paint will cover the inside of the bottle, turning it into a perfect glowing skittle for your party! At the party, have children stand 5-8 years away (depending on age) and arrange the bottles with some sand, or rice inside to add weight. Give the children a tennis ball (or equivalent) and let them see how many of the Skittles they can knock over! Typically you’d have 9 Skittles in a game, but for younger children this is not necessary and we suggest 5 as a good number! SKittles is a super fun activity, and the glow in the dark theme adds a perfect twist to entice older kids as well as younger kids.
• Glow-in-the-Dark Twister: Recreate a classic twister board using fluorescent paints for the twister colours. Again this is a great way to add some excitement to the well-loved party game, and for older kids, you can add some super fun forfeits for those two fall on the board. 
• Glow Stick Jump Rope: Glow or light-up skipping ropes create such a cool effect, this game is like a party of party decorations! Let kids play around with their ropes, or set them up playing some skip or dare challenges, for instance, if they fail before skipping to the end of the alphabet they have to do a funny challenge or dare! Here is a sweet list of family-friendly dare challenges that might be perfect for kids and pre-teens.
• Glow Stick Hula Hoop Contest: You can buy light-up hoola hoops, or simply elevate the ones you have by using a black light for a white hoop, or painting a hoop with neon colours. These will also make a space look really cool by having kids play with them as live decorations.
• Glow-in-the-Dark Musical Chairs: Like the classic game but rather than actual chairs, use glow tape to mark out stars or shapes on the floor that guests have to stand on as soon as the music stops! Each time peel away one option so that there are always fewer shapes than players, and each time the music stops those who haven’t occupied one are out! Scroll down for some fun ‘glow-themed’ songs later on in this post. Playing these could make this game even more fun!

Glow Activities:

There are so many fun glow-themed creative projects that could be great fun to participate in during the party! 

• Glow face painting station: Let the kids decorate their faces and arms with epic glow designs! For younger kids, you can have a parent or auntie on the glow table offering cool designs, or for older kids part of the fun could be painting these themselves. 
• Glow Slime: Making slime is so much fun, and what’s more exciting than glow in the dark slime! We have found a simple recipe for it here from one of our favourite sites The Best Ideas for Kids . you could even customise by letting the kids add glitter. You can either make this a craft activity for the party and let the kids make their own, or you can make it in advance and have a slime play station to the side of the party area.
• Glow bracelets: Have a birthday craft activity where kids can make their own glowing bracelets. Buy some glow-in-the-dark beads and let them string these together with regular beads for beautiful necklace or bracelet designs that will have great glow effects later on the dance floor! These glow necklaces and bracelets will also make gorgeous going home presents. We have a cute ‘glow’ song list below that you could play in the background during the crafting, just for fun!
• Neon balloon animal-making: You can buy tube balloons in glow colours or that come with balloon LED lights inside. Print some instructions for balloon animal making and have the kids experiment making poodles, dinosaurs and giraffes! With these balloons they could also make play swords, helmets or funny costumes, so let them be creative and then show off their creations in a dark area!
• Neon t-shirt decorating: This is an epic birthday party craft activity! Buy some plain white t-shirts and lay out neon or glow fabric paints in different colours for them to decorate and customise their t-shirts with super fun designs. The t-shirts will need some time to dry, so this could be a great activity for the start of the party, with a disco after! If you need a background playlist for this decorating, check out our suggestion of glow theme songs below! 

Glow party playlist ideas

Fun glow theme songs to include in the playlist! These are all kid-friendly and a mix of songs the kids might recognise from movies like Pitch Perfect, and some older pop songs! 

• “Glow” by Britt Nicole
• “Glow in the Dark” by The Wanted
• “Shine” by Newsboys
• “Glow” by Hillsong Young & Free
• “Starlight” by Muse
• “Bioluminescent” by Breathe Owl Breathe
• “Glow” by Ella Henderson
• “Glow” by Jacob Tillberg
• “Twilight” by Cover Drive
• “Light Up the Sky” by The Afters
• “Glow” by Kelly Clarkson
• “I See the Light” from Disney’s Tangled
• “Glow Worm” by The Mills Brothers
• “Flashlight” by Jessie J (from the movie Pitch Perfect 2)
• “Glowing” by D.A. Wallach
• “Dancing in the Moonlight” by Toploader
• “Glow” by Jason Mraz

Cute Party Favor Ideas:

For a neon glow party, there are some very cute party favour ideas that could just top off the fun of the night! While we don’t always suggest party favours, these are all small and inexpensive but still super exciting and cool to younger kids so we couldn’t resist sharing a few of our favourite ideas with you here!

• Glow Stick Bracelets and Necklaces
• Neon-Colored Sunglasses
• Glow-in-the-Dark Slime
• UV Reactive Temporary Tattoos
• Neon Coloured Nail Polish
• UV Reactive Bubble Wands
• Glow-in-the-Dark Stickers
• Glow-in-the-Dark Yo-Yos

Goodluck!

We hope these ideas are exciting you for your next party and that you can start to have a vision for how you might create your own DIY glow for your little ones! 

Remember to take heaps of photos, as these parties will really be ones for the memory books!

Best of luck, 

Zoe x