13917

Bird Party 6yr

July 2006

SwampWitch (Susan) in Victoria, BC, Canada

Honorable Mention

Bird-Day Party  When our daughter turned six, we invited her entire kindergarten class to her party. Since she was  crazy about birds, the theme was easy.   For the invitations, we made an open-wing bird pattern and cut out the invitations on colored card  stock.  We also cut out an egg shape of a different color. We folded the wings over the bird's body  and put the egg inside. When you'd unfold the wings, the invitation read, "You are invited to  Annamaria's Bird-Day Party!" followed by the details. On the egg we wrote, "The fun starts at eggs- actly 2:00!" Our daughter decorated white invitation envelopes by gluing on colorful feathers. (Tip:  draw the bird outline, print the details, and take to a copy store to print on card stock. Then you  only cut out and fold.)  We have a large backyard so we decided to do carnival-type activities, and made the games  ourselves. We decorated a heavy bucket to look like a chick with an open mouth and made six  "worm" beanbags for a "Feed the Chick" toss game. My husband drew an ostrich on poster paper  with feathers missing around the tail end and we cut out a paper feather for each child to play "Pin  the Tail on the Ostrich." We put a big bowl of lettuce by the chicken run for the children to feed our  pet chickens, which was surprisingly a huge hit! We had a craft table set up for the kids to make  birds out of toilet paper rolls (body), styrofoam balls (head), card stock (wings), pipe cleaners  (beaks and feet), and googly eyes. We had several markers, scissors, and bottles of glue on the  table, too.  We set up another station to make bird feeders out of bagels, peanut butter, bird seed,  and string, with paper towels, small baggies, and a marker to label each child's baggie when done. (This craft is thanks to an idea from this site.) As a surprise activity, we hid lots of small glow  plastic eggs with a candy inside. We didn't tell the kids but once an egg was found, word spread  like wildfire, and soon all the children were egg-hunting!   Since we had 18 children at the party, I made the snacks beforehand. In plain brown lunch bags  (also decorated with colored feathers) I put a small bag of popcorn, a package of gummy worms,  and a wetnap. The juice boxes were in an ice chest by the bags so in no time at all the children  were eating.   The cake was shaped like a nest and covered with chocolate icing. Stuck in the cake all around were  Twix bars, chocolate-covered pretzel sticks, and any other kinds of chocolate sticks I could find. On  top of the cake were six Cadbury creme eggs on which we "painted" many coats of white chocolate.  I also made mini-cupcakes to look like tiny nests with three jelly beans on top for eggs. Again, with  so many kids, after we sang "Happy Birthday" they all had a little cake while waiting for their pieces  of birthday cake.  After the sugar, we gave each child a small bottle of bubbles and a styrofoam bird flyer, which gave  them all a reason to run around the yard. (We had decorated the yard with bird-shaped kites in the  trees and lots of helium balloons anchored with weights.)  I overheard one child yell, "This is the most awesome party ever!" and other, "This party is WICKED!"  so I think it was a success. Each child took home their bird feeders, bird craft, eggs they had found,  and a bag with a bird visor, bird pencil, extra bird flyer, a sesame-seed candy, and a helium  balloon.  I don't believe in opening gifts at the party so our daughter wrote thank-you notes and decorated  the envelopes again with colorful feathers. As in any party this large, I would suggest recruiting  several parents and friends to help. Several mothers told us afterwards that it was an amazing  party. Our daughter had a blast with her friends, so for us it was a success!

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