Sneaking Educational Activities into Birthday Parties

These were the plates that we used from www.orientaltrading.com.

As always I try to squeeze in the educational lessons even at my kid's birthday parties.  Of course, it's important to have a mix of games.  Not all of them have to be educational.  This year's theme was unicorns and rainbows for my daughters.  So we had some classic party games like "Pin the Horn on the Unicorn" (instead of pin the tail on the donkey) and plastic multi-colored "Unicorn Shoes" (instead of horse shoes).  However, I try to have activities to keep the kids busy while we set up the next game or get the cake ready. 
For instance, a big floor puzzle that everyone can work together on is fun.  A craft area is always a must, too.  We had simple unicorn themed mazes, connect the dots pages and coloring pages for the younger kids and then more complex mazes and word searches for the older kids.  I use www.colormountain.com and www.educationalcoloringpages.com to print out free pages for my kids to color year round.  Now-a-days there is no reason why we should pay ten bucks for a coloring book, if you have a computer and printer at home. 
As a science lesson, I taught the kids the colors of the rainbow and their order. I had the help of Sid the Science Kid (I love that show).  We sang "Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet, too." 

For my son's Sesame Street birthday party we played Match the Rubber Ducky Number with rubber duckies from Oriental Trading.
The kids made foam Ernie, Bert, Grover, Elmo, and Cookie Monster out of pre-cut foam shapes and glue dots.  Goldfish were served in a goldfish bowl.  Instead of goodie bags everyone got a ziploc bag filled with fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and a miniature foam cookie monster attached to the front.  Sesame street coloring pages were spread out in the craft room.  Ernie's "123 Count with Me" Sesame Street video was played while we got the cake ready. Just for fun we provided kick balls in primary colors. Whatever the occasion - sneak education into your kid's lives and have fun!