5656

Outer Space Party -5yr- Alien Cake

Feb 2003

Deborah in Springfield, PA

Special Mention

This is for an outer space party ( we used Jimmy Neutron as a central theme, but these ideas can work for any space theme) We invited the entire class of 4 and 5 year olds(16 children) so I decided to have stations of craft and cooking activities to keep the party organized. We labled the stations with alphabet letters.

As the children arrived they were given name tags and sent to the D (design) area where they got busy designing rocket ships from our blocks and legos. As soon as enough children had arrived they were divided into groups and sent to their stations:

A - Alien Room - here the children were provided with a visor that had been cut from large sheets of craft foam ( I cut a free form head with two arms and a bottom head band area. I was able to get two alien heads from one craft sheet.)The work table in this area had a collection of foam shapes(cut from the visor scraps) foam stars, google eyes, markers, glue sticks, pom-poms,and glitter glue. The children decorated their aliens and after they dried, these visors became the party hats. These supplies only cost about $15 when purchased at the dollar store and local craft shop. you would pay almost as much buying party hats at the specialty shops, and they don't provide the fun of making them. Be sure to have an adult helper to write each child's name on the bans area and tie the hats onto their heads.

B- Badges - The children were provided with a small zip top sandwich bag that contained small glow in the dark pony beads, and a hemp cord that had a space medalion tied to the center (I got these in a dollar store in a package of ten, glow in the dark space ships that are meant to decorate the walls. They also had stars and planets, but the rocket ships had an open area to thread the string) The children had to count and put 15 beads on each side. An adult helper then tied the ends of the rope and the children wore them for the rest of the party.

C- create a cookie - in this area the children are provided with large rocket ship cookies that I had baked from a simple sugar cookie dough.(because I could not find a space ship cookie cutter, I made a pattern from cardboard and used it as a template). The children had access to various colored icing, marshmallows, small candies, colored sugar and jimmies. They were provided with a small plastic knife and allowed to spread their icing and decorted till they're hearts were content. We had each cookie on a character plate, and then an adult helper wrapped each cookie plate with those pre-cut foil sheets and labled with their names. They took these home as their goodie treat. Because the children all worked at different speeds and because the helpers needed a little time to clean up and regroup for the next session, I had a movie(in our case, Jimmy Neutron)ready to start when the first child finished and the kids were sent to the movie area until the next station was ready. 

The hour of crafts flew by and nobody got bored or restless. We served HotDog Aliens(after boiling and while still hot, the hot dogs were split in at each end so that it formed arms and legs and were placed on a plate with a large circle of dill pickle for head(decorate with olive slice eyes) and shredded cheddar cheese for the hair.)

Our cake was the hit of the party. I baked a bunt cake and decorated it with bakers icing in varing shades of green. First, ice the cake thinly with a lighter shade of green. Then pipe a darker green icing using a plastic bag with a hole in the tip, running the icing down the sides like slime. Repeat the piping with still darker icing until you are satisfied with the effect. Use two long bamboo skewers, place them on each half of the circle as eye stems. Push 2 or 3 large marshmallows onto each skewer, and cover with green, piped icing. Cut a snowball cake (snack cake that has cream filling and is covered with marshmallow and coconut) in half and use these halfs as eyeballs. Now comes the fun. Instead of ice cream which nobody ever eats, I took a funnel that was large enough to fit in the bunt cake opening(I cut off the extension and only used the bowl) and placed it into the opening, covering the plastic rim with icing so that it could not be seen and blended with the cake. Right before serving, fill the funnel with chocolate pudding (we called this the brains)and heap it high. The cake was easy to cut under the funnel and we served each piece with a large helping of "brains".

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