16927

Magic Tree -8yr- Dinning Room Treehouse

November 2007

Lisa in Pembroke Pines Florida USA

Special Mention

Arielle's 8th Birthday Magic Tree House Party! This party was designed for my daughter's 8th birthday party and is based on her favorite book series the magic tree house by mary pope Osborne.  

Set up:   Prepare the front yard as the entry way with the craft table set up with name tag stickers with ML on the top written in Gold , and a green or black marker to write the names of the guests after they have past the first quest for the sword. The quest for the sword will be the initial setup, in the front yard with a baby pool filled with small plastic balls and the Master Librarians will have to go into the pool to retrieve the sword. Once they have found the sword, chief master librarian Arielle, will decree them master librarians, and they will get their master librarian card (nametag).  

Welcome activity  Inside the house the living room will be set up with balloons of brown and green to look like the Frog Creek forest.  Three boxes will be arranged in a line for the ML's to crawl through, each box decorated as a scene from a scary part from one of Arielle's favorite Magic Tree House books. 

The first box will be painted grey and will resemble a haunted cave, for the ghost cave. A fog machine will produce an eerie effect spreading out from the cave, and white streamers will hang down throughout the cave (box).  As the kids pass each child will pick up some ghost glue to prove they have finished this mission. Ghost glue bottles will be in a bowl at the end of the cave. 

The next cave will be the cave of the Spider Queen, painted black with fake spider webs and small black spiders sitting in their nests. At the end of the spider cave the huge spider queen will wait, which will be Arielle's Halloween costume on a big teddy bear. Another bowl will hold spider bags full of popsicle sticks.

 The final cave will be the cave of the polar bears, where a fan will blow white streamers as the ML's pass through. They will retrieve white bags from this cave filled with the remaining craft items they will need to make their magic tree house replica goodie bags.  And after crawling through the ML's will get the last of the three prizes and will take them to Morgan Le Fay ( Nana) in the dining room.

The dining room will be decorated as the magic tree house, with a brown table cloth and place mats of copied pages and pictures from the books. The walls will have green and gold streamers and enlarged pictures of the book jackets from several of Arielle's favorite books, along with green and gold balloons. Craft In the dining room the ML's will bring forth their three bags which when opened will contain the materials needed to make the craft, which is a miniature magic tree house, complete with a small plastic dog to represent Teddy.  Morgan will help the young ML's with their craft while the remaining guests arrive, and can do small face paintings if there's time. After making the craft the ML's will go outside and begin their next missions.  

Games: The first game is an ice breaker, called Merlins Ring pass. The   ML's must form a circle holding hands and a hula hoop will be placed on the arms of the ML's, who must pass it completely around the circle without breaking hands or the magic will be lost. If they succeed they will be given a magic golden ring. 

The next mission is a Selkie Sac race, where the ML's will be turned into sac wearing seals when they jump into a brown pillow case after Arielle reads the selkie rhyme from Summer of the Sea Serpent. They must pass the finish line to earn the reward of the gold medallion.

The next mission is the search for Merlins missing books. In this mission the kids will search the yard for the Magic Tree House books, and other books, (hidden in plastic baggies), and return them to the magic tree house. Someone has to find the Frog Creek book in order to return home, and whoever finds this wins a magic pen.  Cake and song But everyone is a winner because the next mission is to defeat the ice monster inside and the ice monster just so happens to be a sweet treat, a mini cupcake with white icing and other decorations.  Sea serpent punch, (green Hi-C), Slim's cowboy cookies, and Amazon veggies will also be served, along with cake, (surprise for Arielle and made by Mommy)  After that sweet mission it is time to play Jack and Annie's Name game, which is like charades. Each ML will pick a card out of a bowl that will contain a name of a character or animal and a few things about that character so they can act out who it is.   

If the ML's are not too familiar with the books, another game can be played, where they all sit in a circle and play a rendition of hot potato, called pass the magic and whoever gets stuck with the book (when I stop reading from another MT book) goes to give Arielle their gift. This seems like a fun way to do the presents, and will hopefully keep everyone having fun.  

Finale  When all gifts are done the kids will stand up and play freeze dance, with the mission being not to get frozen by the ice monster. Once they get out or frozen they will receive their goody bag, and sit down along the wall. Once all the master librarians have their bags there is time to just play and talk until its time to go home. 

The goodie bags:  The goodie bags will be made using brown paper lunch bags, with a picture of Jack and Annie glued to the fronts, along with the name, or ML card of the guest. Inside there will be a Magic Tree House book, some candy, and a book mark, (made by chief master librarian Arielle). The guests will also take home their tree house craft, Merlin's ring, and their medallion. 

This party idea was created by my daughter and I and was so much fun to think up. These books are wonderful and I hope someone else who has a child who loves to read will have a party like this one, either for the magic tree house, or any other book series they love…fostering a love of reading is an important gift we can give to our children that can carry them through their lives. Have fun!

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