6583

Playhouse Disney 6yr

June 2003

Lisa in Garden Grove, CA - USA

Runner-up

For my daughter’s 6th Birthday, we decided on a Playhouse Disney Theme thanks to the new show at California Adventure that my daughter fell in love with. I went to the local party store and purchased a set of plates, napkins & cups in the different characters I could find (Bear in the Big Blue House, Rolie Polie Olie, and Pooh) and then I purchased extra plates, napkins and cups along with the utensils in bright solid colors. For the Invitation: I printed these out on my computer. I used a balloon font and changed every letter to a different color (Just like the Playhouse Disney logo). The front of the invitation read: “Playhouse Disney Presents……” under this I put a picture of Clay (the Playhouse Disney spokesperson) that I took off the internet.  On the inside of the invitation using the same font and colors, it read: “A party to celebrate _____’s 5th Birthday”  There will be lots of fun activities and games to play with Bear, Rolie, Pooh, Stanley, PB & J Otter and Out of the Box, so come prepared to have a great time.  For the Decorations: I found rolls of streamers that were multi-colored like a rainbow where the color changed every few inches, so I hung these all over the patio along with lots and lots of  multi-colored balloons. I also hung streamers and balloons in my garage, for this is where we served the cake & ice cream (more to come on that later). I also took pictures of each character that I found in coloring books and coloring pages on the internet and I scanned these into my poster software on my computer and this made each character about 3 feet tall. These I colored in with markers and glued them onto cardboard for sturdiness. I then placed each of the characters next to their corresponding activity table.  Activities & Games: Since a lot of our friends and family live quite a distance away our parties always last all day, so I planned accordingly to give the kids plenty of things to do. I made sure all of the activities were simple enough so I didn’t have to have anyone stationed at all times to help and the kids could come and go as they pleased.   Activity 1: Stanely’s Great Big Book of Everything: I enlarged zoo animal coloring pages onto legal size paper and then I alphabetized the animals by name. I took a piece of black poster board and folded and cut this to the size of the legal paper for the book cover. On the front of the cover I glued a yellow piece of construction paper that I had printed “The Great Big Book of Everything”. I then made index pages with the alphabet letter represented by the animal (another piece of legal size paper with the letter printed very large in the center of the page along with an attached post-it tab on the side with the same letter). I hole punched all the pages (the book cover I hole punched further in and the coloring pages I hole punched close to the side so it was easy to pull the pages out to color) and attached with yellow ribbon. This book I placed at a table with a box of crayons along with the Stanley cutout poster I had made. My daughter also has a Dennis (Stanley’s gold fish) stuffed animal that came in a gold fish bowl “purse”, so I placed this on the table as well next to Stanley.  Activity 2: Clay’s Playdough Area: I set up another table on my patio with every color of Playdough I could find (I found a sale at Target four colors for $1) along with cookie cutters. I made sure I purchased enough Playdough so each child could take home a color along with two cookie cutters (these went into their goodie bags/boxes.  Activity 3: Out of the Box Playhouse: I am able to get large boxes from my work, so I brought about 20 of them home and we attached them with duct tape into the shape of a castle/fort and we cut out doors and windows. I purchased several packages of markers from the local dollar store and I had these sitting in a box next to it so the kids could design the playhouse. We ended up with pictures on the inside walls, curtains colored on the inside and flowers and even a few funny looking animals on the outside. The kids had a blast with this.  Activity 4: Tigger’s Bounce Arena: We rented a Tigger bounce from Bouncetime.net  Activity 5: Rolie Polie Olie’s Frameworks: I purchased some heavy stock yellow paper that I cut out into  frames that would hold a Polaroid picture and attached magnets onto the backs. I also wrote each child’s name on the back so they  would not get lost. I also purchased a big bag of pom-poms from a local craft store and I set these up at a table with glue so each child could design their own picture frame. I took pictures of each child during the party with my Polaroid camera and I inserted the picture into the frame before the kids left.   Activity 6: Bear’s Hand Puppets: I placed one brown lunch sack per child (with each child’s name written on the back for identification) onto another table along with craft glue, craft wiggle eyes, and pre-cut brown ears, arms, legs and bellies out of brown construction paper ( I cut these out myself using a pattern I drew by looking at a picture of  Bear) I also made a sample puppet for the kids to go off of and I had this on the hand of the Bear poster cut-out I had standing next to the table.  Activity 7: PB & J Otter – Use Your Noodle: Disney.com has “Use your Noodle” printables, so I printed out a set of these and Xeroxed them several times and I had these sitting on another table.  Game 1: Bear’s Cha Cha Cha Freeze Dance: I prerecorded the Bear Cha Cha Cha music onto a tape where I would stop the tape and say “freeze” and then I would say “go” and start the music over with pauses in-between, this way I could enjoy watching and recording the fun as well instead having to man the tape recorder with my back turned for fairness.  Everyone wins at my parties to prevent tears so I purchased enough prizes for everyone and the grand prizewinner receives a candy bar. For this game each child received mini maracas (purchased from Oriental Trading).  Game 2: Rolie’s Ball Toss: I purchased a bag of golf ball size wiffle balls ($1 store) and a small hula-hoop. I tied the hula-hoop from a rope for  our tree and the winner was the one who was able to toss to most balls through the hoop. Prize = mini beach balls (Oriental Trading)  Game 3: Find Eeyore’s lost tail. I cut 50 tails out of gray construction paper and glued a pink yarn bow to the end of each tail. The tails were then hidden all over the backyard and the kids went on a scavenger hunt for them. Prize = Winnie the Pooh pencils ($1 store)  Game 4: Help Stanley put Dennis back in his fish bowl (Version of Pin the Tail) I drew a picture of a fish bowl  on white poster board and I cut out gold fish out of orange construction paper and wrote each child’s name on a fish. The winner was whoever’s fish was closest to the center of the fish bowl. Prize = Fish bubbles (Oriental Trading)  Game 5: Use your Noodle: I saw this game at a local mall one day. The children stand in a circle holding hands.  Place a large hula-hoop over one child’s shoulder before they connect hands. Then play music and stop like in freeze dance or musical chairs. While the music is going the children have to move the hula-hoop around the circle without letting go hands by stepping and wiggling through the hoop. The kids have a blast doing this and it creates a lot of giggles. When the music stops the child who the hula-hoop is touching is out. If the hula-hoop is caught between two kids then the child who the hula-hoop was coming from is out. Prize = Small toy puzzle mazes.  Game 6: Out of the Box Pinata: I took just a plain box and painted each side a different color. I cut the bottom out of the box and then hole punched holes all the way around the bottom of the pinata. I then took wide pieces of ribbon and basket wove the ribbon through the holes to create a pull string pinata.  For Lunch: For the kid’s I served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (PB&J Otter) and I ordered a sandwich tray for the adults. We also served a veggie tray, potato salad, chips and dip, fruit salad and fruit punch.  Cake Cutting & Present Time: I decorated our garage with streamers & balloons as well. I placed our ping-pong converter top on top of our pool table and I covered it with three bright colored plastic table clothes. This we used for our cake/present table. I covered my washer & dryer with an old bedspread and placed a board on top of this and on top of this I placed my daughter’s portable TV and our VCR and I had pre-recorded several hours of Playhouse Disney shows off the Disney Channel and the kids watched this while they ate their cake and ice cream. The kids were seated picnic style on two table clothes I laid on the garage carpet floor to make clean up a lot easier. After cake and ice cream my daughter opened her gifts and after her gifts she passed out the goodie bags/boxes.  Goodie Boxes: A local Chinese fast food location sold me 12 large to go boxes for $2. I used these for the goodie bags since they had the cute little metal handles on top and this represent the show “Out of the Box”. I filled the boxes with:  A bag of Skittles, (to represent the circle spots all over Rolie Polie land),  a cup of Playdough and two cookie cutters from the Clay activity, Bear in the Big Blue House stickers, a small bag of Gold Fish crackers (to represent Dennis – from the show “Stanley”), Pooh whistles that I found on closeout at a local party store,  Small puzzles ($1 for three at the $1 store) that I placed a label on the back that said “Use your Noodle to put this together” (this represented PB&J Otter show).  This party took a lot of prep work and on short notice I had to work fast and long hours each day to pull it all together, but it was well worth the effort, because all the kids had a blast. The adults keep remarking on how much fun their kids had and they had at the party and they want to recruit me for help at planning their kid’s parties. I hope this helps someone plan for a future party like this or  use some of these ideas for an individual party instead of a combined character party like this.

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