A Hi-5 birthday party has a particular kind of magic for small children. The moment those bright colors and upbeat melodies appear, two-year-olds drop whatever they are doing and start moving their bodies. That is the show’s whole design principle: five energetic performers use music, dance, and storytelling to teach preschoolers about the world in a way that feels less like learning and more like a group celebration. If your child is somewhere in that two-to-six window and already knows the songs by heart, a Hi-5 birthday party is one of the most natural party themes you can choose. This guide walks you through every practical piece—supplies, decorations, games, food, and favors—so the day runs smoothly and your little fan walks away glowing.
What Is Hi-5 and Why Do Kids Love It?
Hi-5 is an Australian children’s entertainment group and television series created in 1998 by producer Helena Harris, who had previously worked on Bananas in Pyjamas. The show premiered on Australia’s Nine Network in April 1999 with five original performers—Kellie Crawford, Kathleen de Leon Jones, Nathan Foley, Tim Harding, and Charli Robinson—and ran for 13 series through 2011, producing 595 episodes along the way. A spin-off series, Hi-5 House, aired on Nick Jr. from 2013 to 2016 and is still available on YouTube, giving children easy access to the full back catalog of songs and segments. A revived series premiered in 2017 and the brand has since expanded internationally, with versions produced for the UK, the US, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia.
The appeal to preschoolers is immediate and specific. Harris built the show around Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, giving each cast member a dedicated segment—shapes and spatial awareness, music-making, body movement, word play, and puzzle-solving—so that every child finds at least one presenter who matches the way they learn. Songs like “Move Your Body” and “Boom Boom Beat” are structured as top-40 pop, not nursery rhymes, with call-and-response moves that preschoolers can actually copy. The result is a show that feels less like a lesson and more like a dance party with five energetic older siblings. That energy translates directly into a birthday party format.
How Far in Advance Should You Plan a Hi-5 Birthday Party?
For a toddler party in this theme, six to eight weeks of lead time gives you comfortable breathing room. The reason is practical: Hi-5 dedicated party supplies are more limited outside Australia, so you may be ordering custom-printed items from Etsy sellers who need two to three weeks for production and shipping. Getting a six-week head start means you are not scrambling the week before the party.
A simple planning timeline that works well: eight weeks out, decide on your guest count and venue, set your budget, and start browsing party supply options. Six weeks out, order any custom-printed items—invitations, banner, loot bags—and book any entertainment if you plan on hiring a face painter or musician. Four weeks out, send invitations. Two weeks out, confirm your catering plan, make a shopping list for food and decorations, and prepare any DIY decoration materials. One week out, buy non-perishable food items and assemble loot bags. The day before, collect the cake and arrange fresh decorations. Parents who have planned a toddler party know that timelines always slip by at least a few days, so building in that buffer is the most useful thing you can do.
Where to Find Hi-5 Party Supplies
This is where the advice most commonly found online needs an honest update. Dedicated Hi-5 branded party packs—the kind featuring the show’s logo and cast imagery—are considerably harder to find than they were during the brand’s Australian peak in the early 2000s. The situation is different depending on where you live.
In Australia, specialty party retailer Theme In a Box still operates and ships nationally, and is worth checking for current Hi-5 stock. For parents outside Australia, Etsy is currently the most reliable source. Searching “Hi-5 birthday party” returns printable invitation sets, custom banners, cupcake toppers, water bottle labels, and loot bag designs—most as digital downloads you print yourself within 24 hours of purchase. Physical Hi-5 merchandise on Amazon tends toward generic “high five” hand-print kits rather than content from the show, so read listings carefully before ordering.
The most practical approach for most families: combine Etsy printables for the branded look with plain bright-colored tableware in the show’s signature palette of red, yellow, blue, green, and orange. Plain solid-color plates and cups from any party warehouse, paired with a custom-printed Hi-5 banner from Etsy, achieves the aesthetic without the cost of a full themed supply pack.
How to Decorate for a Hi-5 Themed Party
Hi-5’s visual language is built on primary colors, musical imagery, and an energetic pop aesthetic. You do not need licensed merchandise to create an authentic-feeling atmosphere—the colors alone do most of the work. Cover your tables with bright solid-color tablecloths, alternating red and yellow, or layer a white cloth with a rainbow paper runner. Hang a cluster of balloons in five colors at the entrance, one for each of the band’s signature shades, and tie them in groups of five as a nod to the group’s name.
Musical note cutouts made from black cardstock are an easy, recognizable Hi-5 motif. Print or cut them freehand, attach them to a length of ribbon or twine, and drape the garland across a fireplace or party table. Mylar star-shaped balloons catch the light beautifully and reference the show’s performance-stage energy. For a photo backdrop, tape lengths of crepe paper streamers in all five colors in vertical strips across a doorframe or a blank section of wall—it photographs well and takes about ten minutes to put up. A hand-lettered sign reading “Give us a Hi-5!” over the cake table ties everything together without needing any licensed artwork.
Hi-5 Party Games and Activities for Toddlers
The show itself is your game blueprint: it is built around movement, music, and active participation. These activities work best for the two-to-five age group, where attention spans run about ten to fifteen minutes per activity and the goal is joy rather than competition.
Freeze Dance to Hi-5 Songs. Put on a Hi-5 playlist—“Move Your Body,” “Boom Boom Beat,” and “Do the Alphabet” are crowd-pleasers—and have the children dance freely. When the music stops, everyone freezes. For toddlers, skip the elimination format entirely; the fun is in the freezing and unfreezing, not in winning. A parent or older sibling controlling the music makes this effortless to run.
Musical Cushions (toddler edition). Place colorful cushions or floor spots on the ground, one fewer than the number of children. When the music stops, everyone finds a cushion. Instead of eliminating players, remove one cushion each round but keep all the children in the game, so they have to share and squish together. By the final round, all the children are piling onto one cushion and giggling too hard to care who “won.”
Hi-5 Karaoke. Pull up the official Hi-5 YouTube channel, which has hundreds of free music videos. Hand out a toy microphone, a spatula, or a hairbrush—anything makes a passable mic for a three-year-old—and let children take turns choosing their favorite song. This works especially well as a low-energy activity midway through the party when everyone needs a breather.
Musical Craft Station. Set up a small table with coloring sheets of musical notes, stars, and simple instrument outlines printed in black and white. Children can color them at any point during the party and take them home. It keeps early arrivals occupied and gives shy children something to focus on while they warm up to the group.
Bubble Pop Dance Party. Blow bubbles over the dance floor and let the children chase and pop them while Hi-5 music plays. It sounds almost too simple, but this reliably delights the two-to-four crowd and requires zero setup beyond a bottle of bubble solution and someone willing to keep blowing.
Hi-5 Themed Food and Cake Ideas
The food table is where the show’s color palette has the most visual impact. Arrange fruits in the five Hi-5 colors across a single platter: strawberries or raspberries for red, mandarin segments for orange, pineapple chunks for yellow, green grapes or kiwi slices for green, and blueberries for blue. Served on a white platter or in a rainbow arc arrangement, this becomes a centerpiece that is also genuinely useful for feeding a room full of hungry toddlers. For a more elaborate display, fruit kabobs threaded in color order onto skewers let children pick up their own serving without the mess of a shared bowl. You can find tips on assembling beautiful food displays in our ultimate guide to cookie displays.
For savory food, star-shaped or music-note-shaped sandwiches are simple to make with cookie cutters and go down well with the under-five crowd. Fill them with crowd-safe options: cream cheese and cucumber, mild cheddar, or honey and banana. Mini quiches, vegetable pinwheels, and cheese cubes on skewers round out a simple finger-food spread that parents and children both appreciate.
The cake deserves its own moment. A two-tier cake frosted in white with a different Hi-5 color on each tier is visually striking and achievable with store-bought frosting tinted with gel food coloring. Top it with a printed edible image of the Hi-5 logo (available from specialist cake decorators and some supermarkets that offer custom cake services), or use five different-colored fondant star toppers. If a tiered cake feels like too much pressure, a sheet cake decorated with rainbow frosting stripes and a “Happy Birthday—Give us a Hi-5!” message works beautifully and is considerably easier to transport. For drinks, pour juice or lemonade into clear cups and add a different-colored paper straw to each one. A punch bowl with berry lemonade and floating raspberry ice cubes looks impressive and takes about five minutes to put together.
Hi-5 Party Favors and Loot Bag Ideas
Loot bags for the two-to-five age group work best when they contain things children can actually use rather than plastic novelties that end up on the floor by bedtime. A small reusable tote bag in one of the Hi-5 colors works as the bag itself and is something parents genuinely appreciate.
What to put inside: a set of Hi-5 themed stickers (printable sets from Etsy are inexpensive and look polished when trimmed and assembled), a small percussion instrument like a mini shaker egg or a kazoo—music ties directly to the theme—a packet of crayons in primary colors with a Hi-5 coloring sheet or two, and a small bag of colorful wrapped sweets. If budget allows, a mini activity book or a bubble wand rounds the bag out nicely. Keeping total loot bag cost around five to eight dollars per child is sensible; beyond that, the contents rarely survive the car ride home intact anyway. Ideas for personalizing the party experience further can be found in our guide to ideas for memorial birthdays.
How to Create Your Own Hi-5 Decorations on a Budget
If you want the Hi-5 look without paying for custom-printed party packs, the DIY route is surprisingly effective. The show’s visual identity relies on five specific colors and musical imagery—both of which are easy to replicate with craft store supplies.
A musical note banner is the single most impactful DIY element. Trace or free-hand large musical notes onto black cardstock—quarter notes, eighth notes, and treble clefs are all recognizable shapes—cut them out, and string them on twine with alternating colored circles cut from red, yellow, blue, green, and orange cardstock. Hang the banner behind the cake table. It takes about an hour to make and costs almost nothing in materials.
For invitations, a clean design in Canva using the brand colors with a simple “Come give us a Hi-5!” message, the party details, and a musical note border looks professional and personalized. Print at home or send digitally—either approach sidesteps the cost of ordering custom-printed invitations from a party supplier. Balloon clusters in all five colors, placed at the entrance, the cake table, and near windows, transform an ordinary room into something visually cohesive without requiring any other decoration. Five-color schemes photograph extremely well because the eye naturally reads them as intentional and celebratory, even when the rest of the space is plain.
One final suggestion worth trying: encourage guests to come dressed in their brightest, most colorful outfits. A simple line on the invitation—“Wear your brightest colors and be ready to dance!”—means the room fills with walking decorations the moment guests arrive, and every photo from the party looks like a Hi-5 set come to life.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Hi-5 still on TV, and where can I watch it?
The original Hi-5 television series ran from 1999 to 2011, with a brief revival in 2017. The Hi-5 House spin-off, which aired on Nick Jr. from 2013 to 2016, remains fully available on the official Hi-5 House YouTube channel at no cost. This is the easiest way for children to watch the show and discover the songs they will want played at their party.
Where can I buy Hi-5 party supplies outside Australia?
Dedicated Hi-5 branded party supply packs are mostly available in Australia through specialty party retailers. Outside Australia, Etsy is the most practical source, with sellers offering digital-download printable sets covering invitations, banners, cupcake toppers, water bottle labels, and favor bag designs. Search “Hi-5 birthday party printable” for the widest selection. Amazon tends to stock generic “high five” party supplies rather than branded Hi-5 content, so check listings carefully before purchasing.
What age group is a Hi-5 party suitable for?
Hi-5 was designed for children aged two to eight, with the sweet spot sitting around two to six. The party games and activities suggested in this guide—freeze dance, musical cushions, karaoke—work particularly well for three and four-year-olds, who are old enough to follow simple instructions and young enough to find freeze dancing genuinely thrilling. For a mixed-age group, adding a craft station that older children can work on independently while the younger ones enjoy the movement games keeps everyone happy.
Do I need a lot of space to run Hi-5 party games?
Not at all. Freeze dance and musical cushions need only enough floor space for children to move around without bumping into each other, which means a cleared living room or a garden works perfectly. A karaoke station and craft table can sit in corners. The games are designed to be high-energy without requiring a lot of physical room, which makes them ideal for home parties.
What is the single most effective thing I can do to make a Hi-5 party memorable?
Build a Hi-5 playlist and play it throughout the entire event—not just during formal game time. When children arrive to Hi-5 music already playing, the theme is established instantly and the mood lifts in the first thirty seconds. It costs nothing, requires no extra setup, and is the one detail that ties everything else together. The Hi-5 YouTube channel has hours of content to draw from, so you will not run out of songs before the last guest goes home.
Tory Stearns
Tory has been writing for over 10 years and has built a strong following of readers who enjoy his unique perspective and engaging writing style. When he's not busy crafting blog posts, Tory enjoys spending time with his friends and family, traveling, and trying out new hobbies.
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