7534

Clifford the Big Red Dog -5yr- Musical Dog Bones

Nov 2003

Carla in Downers Grove, IL USA

Special Mention

My son requested a Clifford the Big Red Dog party for his 5th birthday party.  I started planning about 7 weeks before so I had lots of time to get things done.  We had 11 children ranging in age from 2 1/2 to 8 years old.

For the invitations, I bought the party invites and thank you pack at the party store.  The party was held on a Saturday from 1-3 p.m.

For the party decorations, we blew up 50 red, yellow and blue balloons.  We hung them outside on a tree and by our front door.  We put balloons in our living room, dining room and family room and hung 6 sets of streamers in the dining room.  I also hung a Clifford Happy Birthday banner in our family room.  We had a Clifford table cloth and Clifford plates and napkins and red silverware all laid out on our dining room table.

My husband painted a refrigerator box white and made a red roof for it, and I painted a red clifford on the front.  It turned out really cute and we used it for several of the games.  It made a cute decoration.  The house looked really festive. 

When the kids first arrived, we fitted them with a red construction band around their heads, then I hot-glued the ears (I had all of this precut, the ears where from red felt) on them. Then their noses where painted on black with face paint.  They looked so cute!  I had told them all to wear red shirts.  Then they all stood around my son's train table and made dog tags.  I had precut 2" round circles out of posterboard and cut out black and red ribbon to tie around their necks.  They had to glue on their choice of dog bone buttons and red beads (I got these from a craft store) and write their names on them or have someone write their names on them. 

Then they played games. 

The first game was to have one child be the leader and do dog tricks (roll-over, bark, jump).  They really enjoyed this activity. 

Then we had hidden 56 dog bones (I had cut out dog bones from a Wilton cookie cutter I traced on white poster board) with candy stuck to them with double sided tape.  This was pretty crazy, but the kids really liked this activity also.  I had given them each a zip loc bag with their names written on to put their candy in after they found it.

Then they played Pin the Tail on the Clifford (I blew up an image of Clifford from the Scholastic site at a copy store, I told them as big as they could get it, and painted it with red tempura paint and outlined it with black permanent marker and I made tails out of red construction paper.  Each one had double sided tape on it and the child's name).  Everyone won a prize,  I gave away Clifford coloring and sticker books to the younger kids and some googly stuff and a craft prize to the older kids. 

Then they played musical dog bones, I had cut out 10 large dog bones in red and white poster board.  We put them in a circle and played a music cd with dog and party songs on it (Let's get this party started, Who let the dogs out, How much is that Doggie in the window, Hound Dog, BINGO, etc. ) When the music stopped the person who wasn't on a bone had to go to the dog house.  Everyone loved this game and they all got a prize, they received Clifford card game, matchbox cars or a soft Clifford ball as prizes.  The 2 older kids got that tongue candy and a window decoration craft. 

Then they played Doggie, Doggie where's your bone.  I bought the game, Throw Me a Bone, and used the Bone bean bag from that.  Then they played Musical Dog House.  They had to crawl around the house and through the house and whenever they got caught in the house when the music stopped they got a prize.  I had made a box of cheap prizes for this game, I had red cups filled with different candy, balloons, Clifford chalk and little pinwheels, that they could pick from.  They played this game over and over and won lots of prizes. 

Then they ate pizza (my husband made all of the pizzas and cooked them while we played the games and made the craft)I also had made bone shaped cookies decorated with white frosting and red sprinkles and puppy chow.  Then they had cupcakes (I made white birthday cake and decorated the cupcakes with white frosting and red sprinkles, I also made chocolate frosting for some of the cupcakes).  I put 5 red candles in one cupcake and put all the cupcakes on a cookie sheet). 

Then my son opened presents and we sent everyone home fed and happy with a doggie bag (I used brown lunch bags and stamped red paw prints on them and my son put Clifford stickers all over them).  In the bags was a Clifford bouncie ball, a Clifford whistle, a red tootsie pop, red licorace, Clifford stickers, and goldfish). The party was so fun and Clifford made a great theme.  I got lots of ideas from this site, thank you.  All of the effort was worth it to see my son so happy and all of his friends happy as well.

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