3448

Madeline Party -4yr- Madeline Outfit

March 2002

Jana in Bristol, CT

Honorable Mention

Our Olivia just became the most well-liked girl in her preschool class thanks to Madeline. Olivia dressed up in the inexpensive Madeline outfit and her insistent little sister wore a romper made from yellow fabric dotted with Madelines.   We had drawn a large Madeline on banner paper to cover the door. We used Madeline invitations/thank yous from Birthday Express (as well as their mylar balloons). We used red, blue and yellow latex balloons and streamers.

We used blue tablecloths and yellow plates/cups.  We made white placemats ahead of time with each girl's name on it and Olivia had fun decorating each with Madeline stickers. We then laminated them. We served a large ice cream cake with our own Madeline laminated drawing stuck on.  We also made the yellow hats cookies made from sugar cookies/muffins messy and not eaten.

For games, we played pin the bow on Madeline..at that age you just have to let each girl cover her eyes with her own hands or they are too scared.  They had fun taking the bows off again and again.  A week after the party and the game is still on the wall and our daughters love to play it.

We had a make your own Madeline bead necklace in another room.  You can get the kits from European Toys (part of Crocodile Creek in Indiana) or like we did, we bought their bracelets on clearance for $2.50 each and took them apart and passed out just the Madeline beads with bowls of funky misc. beads from a craft shop.  NOT A GOOD ACTIVITY for this age they can't concentrate with all the other girls/mothers around. We ended up passing out bags for the necklaces to be finished at home.

In another room, we had a small trampoline and played music from Madeline's Favorite Songs.  Each girl got to jump for one song and then switched.  THIS WAS A VERY BIG HIT!  

We also made the straw hats for each girl.  Oh my this took so much time to make (straw soaks up paint and ribbon was hard to neatly wrap around the brim) and the girls did not want to wear them because the straw was itchy.   We also had coloring pages for each girl (search online and you'll find lots of free ones to download). Not a big favorite but definitely a time filler.

At this age, I would not recommend adding things like teaching French, etc.  We were so surprised to discover how many girls at this age didn't have a copy of the Madeline book at home.  They had only seen the videos. One can rent a full size Madeline character from a costume company online (don't remember name)for $150 but you must rent it WELL in advance as you compete with libraries and book stores for it. Would I do it again DEFINITELY.

Olivia has wonderful memories and we popped all her photos in a Madeline scrapbook. AN IDEA:  Boys can be included in this party too. They would love to dress in black hats (any party store) and be told they are Pepito the Bad Hat. Make Pepito treats by dipping large marshmallows in chocolate and placing them each on Reeces peanut butter cups. Dot with red gel.

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