Parties2Plan: 2013

October 25, 2013

Scooby Doo Party- Games & Activities

Details

This party was for a five year old boy. It was held outside.

Games & Activities

As the children arrived, they jumped in the Bounce House until everyone was there.

We then ate lunch and as they finished, the children got to pick out stick on tattoos.

Once that gang was fed & had their tattoos, they were told that the phantom had stolen all of Scooby's dog bones! Could they help find them? We had hidden about 60 milk bones around the back yard for them to hunt. The four & five year olds LOVED this.

Next we told the kids that ghosts had stolen Scooby's treasure as we lead them to the "Ghost Garden". Here we had white balloons that I had inserted quarters into before inflating. Then I drew faces on each balloon with a black sharpie. The children had to pick a ghost and pop it to get the treasure back. They got to keep the quarters.

By now, the table was cleared of the lunch food, and we returned to pick out stuffed puppies from "Scooby's Adoption Center". The kids each picked out their puppy and then made a beaded collar for them. They were also able to make a matching bracelet for themselves.

The stuffed dogs, beads & elastic string were all purchased from Oriental Trading. We kept with the blue/green/orange/purple color theme.

This activity was great for reinforcing the patterns that they had been learning about in school recently.

We sang happy birthday and had cupcakes.

Then it was time for the pinata.

I made the conscious decision to get a pull-string pinata, since I couldn't see beating up a Scooby pinata with a stick!

We've tried pull string pinatas in the past where each child took a turn pulling one string... and it never worked (we always ended up just ripping it & dumping the candy out from above their heads).

This time we had all of the kids select a string and pull at the same time.

This worked so much better! The pinata opened, and all of the children were centrally located under it, so everyone got to scoop up goodies.

I made little orange & blue "Doggie Bags" for them to hold their treats in.

The party wrapped up with children returning to the bounce house for a bit.

Additional ideas

-"Mummy Wrap"- Split kids into teams and have them pick one person to be the Mummy. Give them a roll or two of toilet paper and have them race to make a mummy out of the selected team member. This could roll right into a game of "Mummy Tag" where the mummies are "it".

-There are lots of ideas online for making a scavenger hunt, putting rhyming clues at each game/activity.

-We did a Doggie Bone Hunt, but you could also do a "Doggy Bone Toss", where the bones had to be thrown into a doggy bowl placed a few feet away. Or, if really ambitious, you could make a carnival-style sign of Scooby with a hole for his mouth that the kids could throw the bones through!

-"Scooby, Scooby, Phantom"- Played just like Duck, Duck, Goose!

-Pin the tag on Scooby

-"Velma's Glasses"- One child is selected to be "Velma" and closes their eyes & counts to ten. Meanwhile the other children are given a pair of glasses to pass behind their backs. Velma then has to guess who has them.

Add your ideas in the comments below!

Scooby Doo Invitations & Decorations
Scooby Doo Food & Goodies

October 23, 2013

Scooby Doo Party- Invitations & Decorations

DETAILS

This party was for a 5 year old boy.

It was held in October, outdoors in a field.

INVITATIONS

We came up with two designs and let the birthday boy pick the one he liked best...

Birthday boy chose this one!

We printed them up four to a page on cardstock.

On the back of them we printed a bat with the year.
This makes it a cute momento for the baby book.

DECORATIONS

The best part about having a Scooby Doo Party in October is that we could decorate for Halloween & it goes with the theme!

So, aside from bats, spiders & other Halloween decor, we went with a purple/blue/orange/green color theme.

Since the party was being held outside in a field, we put up a 10x10 party tent to serve as a "base" for the food & drinks.

We set up a variety of tables to serving food & drinks from.

We hung paper lanterns & streamers in the tent.

We had tables set up in the field for the kids.

The table accessories included:

-Scooby Lunch Plates

-Dog noses

-Blow horns

-a Scooby Doo lunch box to anchor balloons

-Purple & black table runner (bought a large roll of it at TJMaxx during last year's halloween clearance)

- a Scooby Doo Happy Meal bucket to hold cookies

A couple of other fun finds that we used to decorate were:

-an inflatable blue alien won at the county fair this summer

-New doggie bowls to use as serving bowls

-The Christmas Tree Shoppe had a summer clearance sale with all kinds of blue/green/orange plates, placemats, tableclothes, paper plates, napkins, and paper lanterns

-Helium balloons

-Lava Lamp

OTHER IDEAS

Things I've found after-the-fact, that I would have liked to use!
(isn't that always the way?)

Scooby treat bucket

Balloon Bouquet

Add your ideas in the comments below!

Related Posts:
Games & Activities
Food & Goodies

July 5, 2013

Corned Beef & Cabbage Paninis

For the Saint Patrick's Day Brunch, we decided to have a Soup & Sandwich option. We came up with the corned beef & cabbage paninis as a way to put a new twist on a traditional St. Paddy's Day meal.

Ingredients:

Bread- we used italian loaf, sliced pretty thin

Corned Beef- thin sliced from deli

Cooked Cabbage- Cook in water with a little beer, mustard seed, salt & pepper. Cut into bite size pieces (otherwise sandwich will pull apart when trying to bite through it!)

Dill Mustard Chapagne Sauce (I found at TJ Maxx)

Gouda Cheese

Butter

Directions:

-Butter outsides of bread

-Spread Dill Mustard Sauce on insides of bread

-Stack Corned Beef, Cooked Cabbage & Gouda Cheese on bread

Since we were doing an "Open House" style buffet, we made the sandwiches ahead of time and used toothpicks to hold them together on the platter. The panini maker was on the side of the buffet, so guests could take their sandwich and heat it themselves (so it was nice & hot when they were ready to eat it).

These went really well with the Potato Cheese Soup!

Potato Cheese Soup Recipe

Long overdue... I'm finally getting around to posting recipes from the Saint Patty's Day brunch.

We kind of winged it (which is the reason I don't have amounts of each listed below).
I wish I took up close photos of the food... this is the best I've got!

Ingredients:

Potatoes- cooked in salted water

Baby Carrots- cooked in salted water

Beer- 1 bottle

Cream

Beef Broth

Velveeta Cheese

Green Onion

Bacon

Salt

Pepper

Minced Onion

Blend in blender- potatoes & carrots with cream, beer & Broth

Added blended ingredients to crock pot with:

Velveeta cheese

Green Onion - chopped

Bacon - chopped

Celery Seed

Salt

Pepper

Minced Onion

Cooked for a three hours in crock pot

March 21, 2013

St Patrick's Day Brunch

FOOD

This year, we had a brunch for St. Patty's Day. We set up the food as a buffet (putting them in crock pots to keep warm).

Menu included:
Scrambled Eggs
Sausage
Oatmeal with fixings (brown sugar, cinnamon, dried cranberries, raisins, maple syrup)

Potato Cheese Soup (toppers of scallions & extra shredded cheese)

Corned Beef & Cabbage Paninis

Crab Deviled Eggs

Irish Soda Bread

Pastries
Brownies
Oh Ryan's Irish Potatoes

Drinks
Leprechaun Lemonade (yellow lemonade dyed green)

OJ
Coffee with Irish Creamer
Irish Breakfast Tea

Mimosas

Wine with green labels

Harp & Guinness beer

Baileys

Water bottles (with St. Patty's labels)

Soda

Games & Activities
We set up a kids table with some crayons and activities for them to do.
Roll-A-Leprechaun

Coloring pages
Word find
Jokes
Trivia & MadLib from Snapfish

Decorations

Free Printables from How Does She
Free Printables from Simply Create Designs on Catch My Party

Free Printable from Landee See Landee Do

Using picture frame coasters,
I inserted color printouts into the frame.
Used as spoon rests for the crock pots & coffee pot.
See photo below!

Dressed up an old wreath

For the labels on the lids of the crock pots, I used a cookie cutter to mark a shamrock shape on foam sheets. After cutting it out, I used a sharpie to write, and wrote upside down on the other side (so that when the lids were hung up on the stand behind each pot, you could still see through the glass and read the sign). To adhere them, I used an Elmers Glue Stick. They stuck nicely, and the residue cleaned off easily with just some soap & water at the end of the day.

Kid-made Irish Heart craft/decoration:
-Paint a sheet of paper with green paint ranging from light to dark green.
-Let dry, then cut green paper into small squares.
-Cut out template into desired shape (heart, clover, etc.)
-Paste squares onto template in pattern from light to dark (or stripes, etc)

Recipes for:
-Potato Cheese Soup
-Corned Beef & Cabbage Paninis

February 11, 2013

Curious George Food & Goodies

FOOD

We had some snacks out when the guests arrived.
When possible, we created more little signs to go with the theme...

-Donuts (sign: Curious George & the Donut Delivery)
-Veggie Platter (sign: Curious George and the Perfect Carrot)
-Banana Chips
-Trail Mix
-Popcorn

For lunch, we served Pizza.

Our birthday boy likes ice cream cake, so we got the fun watermelon & orange rolls from Friendly's, as well as a chocolate ice cream cake.

DRINKS

For the kiddos: Banana Punch

Recipe: Use a blender to mix the following ingredients, then split into smaller containers & freeze:

-2 mashed bananas

-1 cans (12 oz) Orange Juice Concentrate

-1/2 can (12 oz) Lemonade Concentrate

-1/2 can (46 oz) of Pineapple Juice

- 1.5 cups water

Before the party starts, place the frozen portions in a punch bowl. Pour unrefridgerated 7-Up over it.

For the adults:

-Monkey Bay wine

-Golden Monkey Beer
-Coffee
-Soda

GOODY BAGS

After printing out a small copies of the "Curious George and the Birthday Surprise" book cover, I used a glue stick to attach the image to plain yellow bags.

Inside the bags, we gave bubbles, slinkies, twirly lollipops, fruit by the foot, and bouncy balls.

We also had some Godparents and adult family members attending (without kids).

For those guests, we made a mason jar of Banana Bread ingredients with recipe attached, & sent them home with a bunch of bananas with balloons tied to them.

PLAYLIST

Songs to consider for background music...
some of them are a stretch, but the subtlety is sometimes half the fun!

Curious George Main Title Theme (Dr. John)
Hey, Hey We're the Monkees (Pop Feast)
Upside Down (Jack Johnson)
The Happy Little Monkey's song (Ooh and Aah)
The First Mate is a Monkey (Randy Crenshaw)
Monkey Wrench (Foo Fighters)
Shock the Monkey (Peter Gabriel)
Baby Monkey (Parry Gripp)
Funky Monkey (Siedah Garrett)
I Wanna Be Like You (Phil Harris)
Monkey Song (Big Bopper)
The Monkey Song (Rhythm 'n Kids)
Curious George (JoBoxers)
Follow that Monkey (Jackie Greene)
Life Less Ordinary (Carbon Leaf)
Coconut (Harry Nilsson)
Bouncing Around the Room (Phish)
Proudest Monkey (Dave Matthews)
Baby Monkey (Parry Gripp)

OTHER IDEAS

Things I've found after-the-fact, that I would have liked to use!
(isn't that always the way?)

Food:

Chocolate Fountain with fruit for dipping (sign: CG goes to a Chocolate Factory)

Pinwheel cupcake toppers
More pinwheel cupcake toppers
Monkey party picks
Pinwheel straws

Favors:

Monkey bubbles
Curious George Tattoos
Treat boxes
Curious George Rings
Bendy monkey figures

Related Posts:

Curious George Party Invitations & Decorations

Curious George Party Games & Activities

February 4, 2013

Curious George Party- Games & Activities

The great part about this theme is that with such a large selection of books, you can make almost any activity tie in!

We made photo copies of Curious George book covers to go along with the activites we had planned.

After taping the image to a pinwheel, we stuck them in cleaned (labels removed) Starbuck's Frappaccino bottles to stand up.

We glued an image of George to the front of the bottle, and stuffed it with blue tissue paper.

Some of the stations were organized activities, others were free play.

Here are the stations we had, along with the signs used (click on the link to see the image)

-Musical Instruments
sign: CG at the Parade or CG Parade Day
Have a basket of musical instruments- enough for each child to get one (tambourines, bells, drums, kazoos, etc.) March around the yard with the birthday child leading the parade.

-Feeding/petting goats
sign: CG Feeds the Animals
Petting zoo with any animals you may own, or even stuffed animals. We had goats for the children to pet & feed.

Feeding Goats

-Kite building
sign: CG Flies a Kite
Purchase blank kites and have children use sharpies to make their own design & color them.
A bit of advice- try putting them together ahead of time. We somehow ended up with two different kinds of assembly, and they were a little bit tricky!

Kite Making

Flying Kites

Making Kites

-Pinata
sign: Curious George Pinata Party

Pinata

-Tee Ball
sign: CG at the Baseball Game

Tee Ball

-Curious George Movie on TV
sign: CG goes to a Movie

-Dress Up area
sign: CG goes to a Costume Party
Get out all of those old Halloween costumes!
Make sure you have a variety of sizes for the children invited.

-Dinosaurs
sign: CG Dinosaur Discovery or CG & the Dinosaur
Set up an area with plastic dinosaurs to play with.

Dinosaur Play Area

-Bowling
sign: CG goes Bowling
You could set up any toy bowling set, but I found this really cute monkey bowling set!

-Train set
sign: CG takes a Train or CG at the Railroad Station
Create a play area with wooden or plastic train sets.

-Sandbox
sign: CG goes to the Beach

-Tumbling/climbing Area
sign: image of CG doing a forward roll
Put out gym mats, crawling tunnels, and any climbing toys/equipment for children to play.

-Monkeying Around game
Use game as a centerpiece on the kids table. If you have more than one table, other good ones to use would be Tumblin' Monkey game, or Barrel of Monkeys

Monkeying Around game in center of table

-Monkey Mouth game
sign: CG Goes to the Dentist
I don't know if Discovery Toys still makes this game, but it's a cute concept where you take playdoh & make teeth for the plastic monkey.

-Storytime- Before lunch (pizza) we read "Curious George & the Pizza Parlor"
Other CG books were scattered around for reading.