For my son's fifth birthday party, he wanted a zoo party.  But, he didn't want to go to the zoo. He wanted us to create a zoo at home.  He is fond of the game Zoo Tycoon, and he wanted us to make his favorite exhibits from the game come to life. I found some cute paper with zoo animals at the scrapbook store and printed the party info on it with my own computer.  It was an afternoon party, so we served lunch.  We had grizzley bear pizza (we cut the crust with a large bear cookie cutter, flamingo fruit salad (I found some flamingo shaped toothpicks at the party store and stuck them into some of the pieces of fruit), and Lion Lemonade (freeze two regular-sized lemon yogurt. Once frozen, mix the yogurt with cold lemonade. Add lemon-lime soda).  Once people were finished, we went through the exhibits.  First, the zebra exhibit: we divided the kids into teams and gave each team a roll of toilet paper and a roll of black streamers. They chose one kid to make into a zebra. Once one kid was through, all the kids wanted to be wrapped in toilet paper and streamers. It was a good ice breaker, since my son had friends from school and other friends from church along with kids around the neighborhood, and none of the three groups knew each other before the party. Then we had an okapi exhibit where we hung mini pretzels from strings attached (with push pins) to the ceiling.  Kids had to try to eat the pretzel without using their hands. Many kids cheated somewhat, but everyone had fun trying to use their tongues to get the pretzel. You could do the same thing with a donut, but we had a little boy with celiac disease attending, so I found a bag of gluten-free pretzels to use instead, and they worked fine.  Then, we had the dolphin exhibit. I found some inexpensive white dolphin stuffed animals at the dollar store, and we tie dyed them. This took a lot of time because the kids had to tie up their animals, with lots of adult help.  But, the kids loved the results.  We chose four colors for the tie dying: red, blue, green, and yellow. Since my son's birthday is in the summer, we were able to leave the animals outside in the sun to dry during the rest of the party.  They were dry by the end of the party, but if it had been cooler weather, I would suggest providing plastic bags for the kids to take them home. Be careful, though, because the dyes do stain clothes. We used kitchen aprons and art smocks we already had to protect the kids' clothes. Then, we had a pinata, and you could use any pinata in the shape of an animal.  My son insisted on having a dinosaur pinata, even though it didn't really fit in the theme. But, it is his party, so we relented and got him his choice. One note, though, is if you choose something cute, some of the smaller kids might not want to hit the pinata, because who wants to hit a cute animal with a bat?  Before the party I drew an elephant, even though I am not an artist, and we played pin the trunk on the elephant" next.  I drew a good number of trunks on regular computer paper cut them out and put tape on the backs. Finally the birthday cake was a crocadile. I baked a bundt cake cut into thirds and rearranged the pieces in the shape of a sideways S.  I used green frosting and a few candy and frosting details to make it look like a croc (and yes I was able to find gluten-free cake mix at the local health food store.  I asked the boy's mother for help in choosing the best brand).  I bought the favors from Oriental Trading...animal stamps stickers and a pen that I put into little zoo animal plastic mugs that I also got from Oriental Trading.  They took that home along with their tie dyed dolphin. All the kids had fun and my own son felt very special. And it didn't cost a fortune (it would be even cheaper if we didn't serve lunch).  "