Zoo Adventure

Set up a safari treasure hunt — hide plastic animals around the garden and give kids binoculars and a checklist. A animal charades game where kids act out animals is hilarious and needs zero setup.

Create a face painting station with tiger stripes, leopard spots, and butterfly wings. For crafts, try paper bag animal puppets — pre-cut ears, trunks, and manes for easy assembly. A feeding the animals beanbag toss game (throw "food" into animal mouths cut in cardboard) is a guaranteed hit.

Use green and brown as base colors with pops of orange and yellow. Create a zoo entrance gate from cardboard with a "Welcome to the Zoo" sign. Hang animal cutouts from trees or walls. Scatter inflatable palm trees and use safari hats as party favors.

Set up cage frames from painted cardboard boxes with stuffed animals inside. Animal footprint stickers on the floor leading to each activity station add adventure.

Serve animal crackers, banana monkeys (bananas with chocolate chip eyes), and jungle juice (green punch with gummy crocodiles). Cheese and crackers shaped like animals with cookie cutters work great.

The cake can be a safari cake with plastic animal toppers or individual cupcakes with animal faces — lion manes from orange frosting, zebra stripes from chocolate drizzle. Watermelon slices cut as "crocodile jaws" are always a photo moment.