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Shark Party -5yr- Wave Bottle Craft

November 2001

Gehl in Manila, Philippines

Honorable Mention

For my son's 5th birthday, he wanted a shark party. 

For the decorations, I cut out 80 sharks from silver, white, black and blue paper, put two together, stuffed them with cotton balls, drew eyes, mouths and gills on them and stapled them together.  These I hung from the ceiling in pairs (one above the other in alternating colors).  I also hung lots of green crepe paper from the ceiling (to represent seaweed) and hung some blue and green netting on the walls together with a few blue and green balloons.  I put blue and green tablecloths on the tables, with the other color of netting on top, and put small shells all over the tables, together with plastic sharks.  I also put some other big shells on the floor in corners as decorations. 

The main activity was swimming in the pool, and we had bought a huge blow up whale which we surprised our son with when everyone was in the pool.  I had a few little games that the children could play without supervision (one of those fishing games with the plastic fish going around and around with their mouths opening and closing, with fishing poles with magnets on the end), another plastic shark game, some bubble blowing fish (where you put the bubble solution in the fish's mouth and blow lots of bubbles), and also made lots of water balloons for them to throw around. 

The children made a wave bottle each (small bottle half with water, half with oil, blue or green food coloring, shells, glitter and a small shark/whale inside, and hot glued the tops on). 

For the entertainment, I had my two older daughters (6 and 8) dress up like mermaids and they sung and danced to a song from The Little Mermaid about Ariel's sisters.  We then had a treasure hunt and I had hidden sea animals in the garden for them to find. 

For the food, I had whale crackers served in a pail, potato salad in a pail, prawns in a pail, dipping sauce served in a huge clam shell, gummy sharks served from another huge clam shell, and fish fingers, and rice.  I made my own cake, cut it in the shape of a shark and iced it with light blue icing, and used black icing to make the eye, mouth and gills.  We had fish-shaped cookies, and fruit kabobs for dessert. 

For the party bags, I cut out some netting, put in the middle a pack of fish crackers, a fish shaped lollipop, a pack of "shark bites", some fish stickers, a fruit roll up, and a splash ball for the pool and bunched it all up and tied it with a green ribbon. 

For the thank yous cards, I simply pulled down all the sharks and each child got a shark with a thank you note written on it the next day.  I had a blast preparing for the party, and the next day my son said "mommy, can we have my shark party again?"

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