13529

Elmo Party -2yr- Lifesize Cardboard Characters

May 2006

Susan in San Diego, Ca. U.S.A

Special Mention

2 year old Elmo birthday party  

I bought darling Elmo invitations, plates, napkins, cups, balloons, stickers whistles and bouncy balls all for a really good price at Walmart. At the dollar store I bought inexpensive tablecloths, cutlery and red and blue streamers which matched the plates and cups. On the invitations I asked the children (mainly 1 - 3 year olds) to wear red and they did. All the children looked absolutely darling!

My 2 year old son wore a red Elmo shirt from Kohl's - $5.99. He also wore red shorts and red Elmo slippers from Toys R Us - $4.99 on sale. I also bought an Elmo furry (Easter basket) for $5.00 at Target's after Easter sale.I bought a goldfish to be Dorothy but she died, so unfortunately she couldn't be part of the party.I found a 3 foot long stuffed Elmo at a garage sale for $2 and had him hanging in the kitchen. At the dollar store I bought a beautiful Sesame street calender that had a large picture of each major Sesame Street Character. I taped them all over the house along with blue and red streamers and balloons.

I had about 10 puppets which I had hanging all over my kitchen. I also had bought at the dollar store Sesame Street coloring books, and I cut out the characters on the front and back of the books and placed them on the tables and in the window of my front door. I painted a 6 foot high Elmo, Big Bird and Cookie Monster on refrigerator boxes and placed them all over the front yard.The kids loved having their picture taken by each figure. 

I made a banner that said "The letter of the day is B and the number of the day is 2".As the children entered they were greeted by my husband who gave them an Elmo postcard. The children's parent was asked to write their name and address on it and place it back in the Elmo basket for a drawing. The prize was a cookie jar filled with chocolate chip cookies.(Having the parents write their name and address makes writing thank you notes so much easier) Because I knew that children would be coming in at different times I had them try to catch bubbles out in the backyard using a bubble machine.

After 15 minutes I had the kids play "pin the nose on Elmo"(I used the calender picture of Elmo and I cut out orange construction paper ovals for Elmo's nose). Next we had a puppet show. I wrote a short puppet skit with several of my puppets and got the children involved in singing and dancing (i.e. hokey pokey).I followed this with reading the Elmo puppet book (The puppet Elmo is actually inside the book)You can buy this book at Target. This is a great book and you sing variations of "If you're happy and you know it".

We also played some games like throw the trash in Oscar the Gouch's trashcan. (I taped the Calender picture of Oscar so his head was popping out the trashcan.) We also played find Big Birds Eggs. I filled candy in the eggs and placed them all over the backyard. (If I were to do this game again I would have put stickers and small toys in them.) I put an Elmo puppet inside a brown paper bag and hid him in the backyard. The kids had fun running around trying to find him. When they found him and gave it to me I quickly placed my hand in the puppet and had him talk to the kids.

Afterwards, while I had the adults put their childrens plate of food together, I had the kids sit down at a table to color an Elmo paper bag puppet(prewrite the children's names on the bags to avoid confusion later). The pattern was in the dollar store Sesame street coloring book. I also enlarged the Elmo, Big Bird and Cookie monster coloring book pictures on my projector to make the six foot characters(Use the regular tempera paint to paint the pictures, not the washable kind.) The meal consisted of Elmo's favorite - "cheese pizza" (Costco has huge pizzas for $7.99.)pasta salad, green salad, vegetable tray and fruit salad. I try to make my parties a little bit healthier now and both the children and adults enjoy that. I also had snacks like Dorothy fish crackers, Cookie monster chocololate chip cookies and organic letter of the day cookies.

After everyone ate the kids continued to enjoy playing with the bubbles and hanging out. The party started at 10 a.m. and was supposed to end at 12:00 (after lunch), but many people stayed til 2p.m.

As the children left I gave them their goody bags. I bought red car banks (at Walmarts after Valentine Day sale for 75%off) that were full of candy. I put a sticker of Dorothy and Elmo on the front of each car. The older kids absolutely adored these gifts. The 1 year olds were given the Elmo bouncing ball. They also all received a lollipop, Elmo whistles and their Big Bird eggs in their goody bag.

When everyone left I sat down with the birthday boy and had him open his presents while I wrote thankyou postcards.(Having your child open their presents when everyone is gone helps avoid a lot of problems.) By the way the total cost of the party was $62.00. Yes, it is possible to have a great party for under a $100. Everyone had a great time and the party was a huge success!!!

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