19929

Handy Manny Party -6yr- Play Money Reward

May 2009

Sonal in Singapore

Honorable Mention

My 6yr old son wanted to repeat car theme that we had for his 4th b'day, but I could not find the battery operated car renting contact we had. So , we decided to go for Handy manny theme. The character may be playhouse disney but my son is interested in all sorts of hands on activities and repairing things. His favorite toys are my old electronics.   I had barely 10 days to do it all .

I started with sms invites. It said that we need lots of helping hands for fun work on this date and place , so put on ur work cloths or carry dads old t shirt and join for my son's party.   The time I chose was 12 to 2.30 in afternoon so we were serving lunch.

I made all the food and the cake at home. there were around 20 kids including 4 friends of my daughter who is 11yrs old. Most of the parents were also there for lunch. I made indian food for adults. I made puris and potato curry and some fried snack and dahi vada and a mango dessert. For kids there was pasta and noodles. In addition , there were snacks like chips and cookies and jelly. 

The cake was choclate cake with fudge sauce, which is a favorite with all the kids( i make it for most potlucks). My son wanted to decorate it with hundreds and thousands and m&ms. So , for the theme , i made a tray with thermocol. I covered it with shiny red packing paper .Then, I took some plastic tools that looked similar to the characters and put big googly eyes on them. with the help of thermocol pieces , and double sided tape it made them stand on the thermocol tray. this was made 2 days before so on the party day i just had to put the cake plate on the tray and done! 

Decorations were simple . i cut strips of red and green crepe paper and hung them straight in set of fours alternating the colors. The party was in a air conditioned function room of our condominium. we left around 20-25 inflated baloons just on the floor to let kids play around. I arranged 16 chairs around some tables put together in a big sitting in a rectangle. i put a bunch of baloons on my son's chair. there was a buffet table and a drinks and snack bar and two long tables put in l shape with chairs as work tables. I also made Happy b'day and my son's name board similar to cake tray but with print out of tools instead of real tools like in cake tray. 

Activities were the main thing , as boys don't want to get bored!I worked hard. outside the function room we have open area so in the morning I put up big sheets of thick brown paper on a large section and secured it nicely all around with tapes and on the floor i taped old newspaper. i had bought some real paint brushes for walls , and roll ons with handles and big bottles of washable poster paint in 3 colors ,red, green and yellow. also, i had real workers knitted gloves that I got from hardware shop where I got paint brushes.

For second activity, I took big sheets of thermocol and big boxes of push in pins and ribbons. I made sign boards for kelly's hardware shop and Mr.lopart's candy shop and party is here. My daughter and i prepared them a day before . we pushed the pins half way through. We put some tools , specially plastic hammers in a tool box on the l shaped working tables along with the unfinished boards.

For third activity , we had big packets of normal straws.  So, as all the kids started coming in they warmed up with baloons kick around. then when most were there we sat for hammering down the pins on boards. I was acting as i need lots of help, things are not finished here. we need to fix up. after everybody was happy with hammering down the pins which took about 10-15 mins, I paid them 2-2 dollars in monopoly money.

Then, i said , i needed help to put put these boards in their right place . so kids carried finished thermocol boards on their heads to the places I asked . i paid them again. Then i said some pipeline is broken and we need to make more pipes and fast and as long as possible. for that I just them straws to link into long chain. they loved it and all got money again and the longest one got 2 dollars extra.

This monopoly money was making things really fun for them as they thought they were being paid. Then we went out and we painted the wall I had covered with brown paper.That was the main activity so we spend good 25 mins there.The reward was tool belts i made with felt in different colors. my friends helped later to throw away the paper. I the meantime , my daughter n her friends had set up the shops inside for kids to spend their hard earned monopoly money on tools in hardware shop and candies in Mr. lopart's shop.

That gave me time to bring down food and cake with my helper. All the kids were happy with bargains and happy to choose their rewards. We had cake and food and daughter and her friends went for swimming . boys were having some free time fun with the tools they bought and then it was going home time.

The return gifts were nice full sized disney towels wrapped in shiny red paper like big candies. It took my helpers a few mins to wash away some paint that dropped . My son was really happy with his party and so were all his guests.

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