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Butterfly Metamorphosis 5yr - Butterfly Cupcakes

May 2011

Erin in Merrimack, NH USA

Special Mention

For my daughter's 5th birthday, she begged for a butterfly party.  As her birthday is in February and we live in the northeast, we had a bit of a challenge.  But with a little creativity and a lot of help from my daughter, we had a great time and successful birthday! 

INVITATIONS:  For the invitations we got some butterfly shaped blank invites from the local craft store.  She colored each one and glued sequins on them.  Inside it said Flutter on by ______ turns 5!" followed by all of the party details.  Party was at our cocoon and RSVP was to the "Momarch". 

DECORATIONS:  The main party room is painted a cheery yellow.  We hung lots of green streamers with a chandelier of ballons in the center.  We made dozens of butterflies made of pipe cleaners and brightly colored tissue paper.  Those were hung from the ceiling and about 15 or so from the balloon chandelier.  We had also purchased realistic looking butterfly window clings that were on the sliding glass door and windows.  I also purchased die cut butterfly and garden bug shapes that we put all over the walls.  In the dining room we had multi colored streamers hung from the chandelier to all corners/edges of the room and gold butterfly ornaments I had found on clearance after Christmas dangling from the light.  The table was covered with a beautiful green table cloth with small plastic butterflies scattered around the table.  My daughters chair had a pair of wearable monarch butterfly wings attached to it as well as a bunch of helium balloons designating her special chair.  The fireplace mantel was decorated with a butterfly Happy Birthday banner streamers and more balloons. 

ACTIVITIES:  When the kids arrived we had a butterfly coloring page for them to do.  The little siblings had a "toddler table" set up where they had foamie butterfly stickers and oversized crayons and more coloring pages.  When everyone had arrived we did our Metamorphosis craft.  I had drawn lines creating 4 sections on paper plates.  Each section was numbered 1 to 4.  First we talked about the first stage the egg.  Kids were given a leaf made of green construction paper to glue in section 1 and then 2 lentils to glue onto the leaf (the eggs).  For the caterpillar stage (2) the kids glued a piece of rotini pasta that I had dyed with food coloring onto another paper leaf.  Next came the chrysalis.  I had drawn a brown "stick" in the 3rd section which the kids glued a shell shaped pasta to.  Finally for the butterfly they took a bowtie pasta (had also dyed these various colors) twisted a small piece of a chenille stick for the antennae and glued that into section 4.  The end result was a great visual teaching the 4 stages of the metamorphosis! 

GAMES:  We had a game for each stage after that Egg:  We have a small play parachute that we had the kids all grab onto.  We dumped 10 white balloons in the middle and the kids went nuts popping them up into the air for a while.  Then the kids all got a white balloon to pop that had a plastic caterpillar in it to take home. 

Caterpillar:  We divided the 10 kids into two groups and created an obstacle course with pool noodles orange cones and a hula hoop.  The kids had to put hands on each others shoulders in a line to create a long "caterpillar" and go through the obstacle course without breaking apart.  In order to be proper caterpillars they were each given a plastic headband that I had picked up at the dollar store with pipe cleaners attached and sticking up as antennae.  After a few rounds of the obstacle course we tried with all 10 kids!  It was really fun. 

Chrysalis:  We used an idea from this site and had the kids wrap each other up in toilet paper to create a chrysalis.  When they were all wrapped up they got to break free through the toilet paper.  After everyone had completed this they received their own "chrysallis" that I had made out of a toilet paper roll wrapped in brown butcher paper. Inside were butterfly stickers. 

Butterfly:  My daughter and I made a giant monarch butterfly pinata out of paper mache.  As this was an inside party we made it a pull down pinata.  Inside we had smarties butterfly foam stickers and plastic butterflies.  I had bagged up goodies in cellophane bags it was much easier dividing up goodies and prevented any potential arguments.  We had also set up my daughter's play tent in the room as the "bug hut" where they could explore lots of toy caterpillars butterflies and bugs with her magnifying glass or read one of her many butterfly books.  

After games the kids opened presents and then headed to the dining room for cake.  After cake and ice cream we read Eric Carle's "The Lamb and the Butterfly" to relax a bit before they went home.

CAKE:  I made monarch butterfly cupcakes for dessert.  We made homemade chocolate mayonnaise cupcakes with orange frostong.  I had hand made chocolate butterfly wings and antennaes on wax paper that I transferred to stand up on the cupcakes.  They were set up on a spiral cupcake stand with my daughter's on the top.  The kids also had ice cream. 

FAVORS:  To simple red paper lunch sacks I had written each child's name and attached a tissue paper butterfly with glue.  Kids had their coloring page and metamorphosis chart headband antennae caterpillar chrysallis filled with stickers and pinata goodies.  I also made a large butterfly shaped sugar cookie and placed it in a cellophane bag.  I then added a little ziplock baggie with orange frosting and some black sprinkles for the kids to decorate when they got home.  For the toddlers I had made some orane playdoh to go along with some animal crackers and a kit to make a caterpillar out of pompoms and tongue depressers.  All in all the party was great success!  The kids had fun learned a little and my daughter felt proud that she had helped out this year!"

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