Garbage Truck Party

The Birthday Boy!
I ordered this shirt from CafePress.

When Dax told me that he wanted a Garbage Truck Party, I had to admit I knew it was coming. He is obsessed with garbage trucks. But do you want to know the funny thing? Dax is also afraid of garbage trucks. I know, right? On garbage day, he worries and worries about being outside if the garbage truck is coming, but then he cries and cries if he misses watching the garbage truck dump our garbage from our window. Wednesdays are a little emotional around here.

Anyway, I looked all over the Internet for ideas for a garbage truck party. I did find a few ideas, very few, but it definitely got my brain going. I'm putting all the ideas from our party on here for anyone else who might need some help with a garbage truck party.

There aren't garbage truck birthday plates and such, so I glued a garbage truck on their party cups and drew a garbage truck on all the napkins, just to make it seem more festive. That was all the decorating that I did.

My garbage truck party gear.

As the guests arrived, they started by playing garbage trucks on our car mat. I pulled out all the smaller garbage trucks (we had 10) and put them around the outside. Then each guest picked one to play with while we waited for everyone to get there. I was surprised that they found it as fun as they did. We did this for about 10 minutes. Then we played Garbage Bingo. I created these bingo sheets using clip art of garbage related items. We used smarties for the markers, so they could eat them at the end.

Playing cars!

Playing Bingo!

The next activity was probably the biggest hit. I had seen the idea to get garbage picker uppers and have them pick up trash all over the yard, but they are expensive. Like $10 a piece. Then I saw these ice grabbers in the $1 section at Target that I thought would work. Since they were small, I put cotton balls and pom poms all over my basement floor instead of pieces of garbage, gave them each a bucket, and let them go to town. When they were done, they dumped them all out and did it again. After the second time, they made me promise we could do it again before they went home. Best $10 I ever spent.

Pickin' up trash!

Cleaning up the basement. They were great garbage men.

Next we went outside for a little recycling relay. They had to empty trash cans filled with garbage into a larger trash can. It was fun to see how intense 4 years old can get.

We had a trash shoot around. They had to shoot a diaper, newspaper, empty milk jug, and a fruit snack box. We did this activity a few times as well.

Even Seth participated in the relay!

We had a garbage truck picture coloring page--this was because I had to feed my baby who is still nursing so we needed something simple and quiet. Randy was in charge of this station while I was out of the room. It was a last second addition or I would have done silly prizes or something.

For the treat, I made dirt cups. The kids were a little nervous about eating them...I think they really thought it was dirt. When they saw Randy eating it, a few of them got a little more adventurous, but everyone ate the gummy worms, of course.

Mmmm! Dirt!

Last we opened presents and played with the garbage trucks for a few minutes while we waited for everyone's parents to show. I ordered these cute garbage cans for a $1/each which Dax filled with candy for their take home treats. They also got to take home their garbage picker uppers/ice grabbers. I thought it was a great party, and probably one of the cheapest ones ever.

He loved all his presents!

The party favors

Great party!