Kapow! A birthday party your little superhero will love!

Holy costume party, Batman! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's...a Superhero, all dressed up for a kids' party where the Kapow! factor is turned up to 11.

Superhero parties are an instant hit with children because they combine such fun activities as dressing up as their favourite movie characters and high energy games.

Every superhero needs some high-energy fuel so we bought and made vibrantly decorated treats in Superman colours - blue, red and yellow. We made blue and red jellies, pineapple on toothpicks, hotdogs, round fairy bread and the guests chug-a-lugged chocolate milk. The toffee apples, cake, star gingerbread biscuits, cupcakes and cake pops were sourced locally. We made and printed out food station labels that you can download yourself for free.

The party colours were carried through to our take-home party bags. These were flled with jelly beans and other sweets in the party colours. The paper bags came from the local dairy and we printed out labels that you can download for free. 

Download 'Food station' and 'Thanks for coming!' labels here. 

A cityscape that you can make yourself makes a great backdrop. We chose Auckland's skyline, painting it on several sheets of brown paper that were taped together. A nice touch is to gather the colourfully costumed guests together and take a photo in front of the cityscape as a keepsake for the guests.

For our fabulous telephone box we contacted a local home appliance firm to request an old refrigerator box. We then painted the box red and cut out windows and a door.

Get the kids to save the world by training their super powers on an obstacle course outside. The front lawn is a good place to set up cardboard boxes, old tyres, bicycles, hula hoops or anything that the kids must zigzag around while meeting challenges such as jumping off chairs or crawling through cardboard tubes. From there it's just a short step to moving faster than a speeding bullet or leaping tall buildings in a single bound…

Super sensory game: Your superheroes will have no trouble using their x-ray vision on a box full of strange objects such as  a segment of cucumber, iceblock stick or lump of play-doh.

Cover the box and get them to use their fingers to see how many items they can guess, if their incredible eyes fail them.

Cake from Karina Wong Cakes, karinaw@hotmail.co.nz
Cake pops from www.cakepopkitchen.co.nz
Cupcakes from Miss Melicious Cupcakes, www.missmelicious.co.nz
Costumes, decorations and paints from www.spotlight.co.nz
Jaffas from The Candyman, www.thecandyman.co.nz
Party supplies and glassware from Pop Roc, www.poprocparties.co.nz, and Sweet Pea Parties, www.sweetpeaparties.co.nz
Superhero gingerbread biscuits from The City Cake Company
Superman and batman costumes, plus glass bottles from The Fairy Shop, www.thefairyshop.co.nz
Tablecloth, decorations from Poppyseed, www.poppyseed.co.nz
Toffee apples from Bluebells Cakery, www.bluebellscakery.co.nz