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Space Theme -7yr- Solar System Place Mats

March 2004

Melissa in Milan, Michigan USA

Special Mention

For my son's seventh birthday, he chose a space theme. 

I decorated the family room with red, white and blue streamers and balloons.  I made big stars out of gold posterboard and glued space ships and comets on one side and hung them from the ceiling along with laminated pictures of space shuttles.  I covered one wall with black paper and put up all the planets along with the sun using a bulletin board display I had used when I taught a space unit in my class.  I drew a huge picture of an astranaut and hung it on another wall for all the guests to write a birthday message on for my son. 

I made the invitations by drawing a space shuttle flying over a planet with the wording:  Please help Ryan celebrate his 7th birthday!  Lunch, cake and fun on Ryan's home planet!  A small caption under the space shuttle said: Roger NASA, Mission Complete!  Heading To Ryan's Party!  The date, time and directions were also included.  I painted the front windows with planets and space ships and an astrauaut. 

The games were simple to make and fun for the kids.  I covered a large appliance box with black paper and decorated it with yellow suns, white stars, astranauts and space shuttles.  I cut a small door in one side and placed glow in the dark stars and planets all over the top of the box on the inside.  I painted a space ship on a large piece of cardboard and drew some aliens on construction paper and cut them out for pin the alien in the space ship game.  I used the lids from frozen orange juice cans to make a flying saucer game. 

I decorated them with star stickers and made crop circles on posterboard labeling each circle with a point value.  The kids could try to toss the "flying saucers" onto the crop circles and add up their score.  I covered empty formula cans with black paper and decorated them with construction paper aliens.  We set them up like a pyramid for the kids to knock down with a small ball.  I painted a kid sized astranaut on cardboard and cut out the face.  The kids could stand behind the picture drop and have their picture taken. 

The party favors were so much fun to put together.  I found inflatable astranauts (23in. High) from Oriental Trading and rubber aliens, moon rocks, 3-D glasses, pop rocks candy, alien psncils, glow in the dark stars and space stickers at the dollar store.  I bought a folder for each child and put in a solar system coloring book, space orbit book, space helmet art project, astranaut and space shuttle pages to color. 

My son made each guest a solar system place mat that I laminated for sturdyness.  I made a rocket ship cake and prescooped the icecream into small plastic cups so our guests wouldn't have to wait for their treats.  The lunch menu consisted of sandwiches cut with cookie cutters in the shape of moons and stars, chips and dip, fresh fruits and veggies and cheese shaped like moons, suns and stars. 

Our guests arrived on party day ready for fun and excitement.  I gave each child a flashlight of their own and sent them into our home-made planitarium to see the glowing stars in the box.  We played pin the alien in the spaceship and did a little alien bowling.  The kids had a ball.  After everyone had several turns at these games, we tried the crop circle disk game. 

This game was a favorite and some of the kids asked me if they could take the disks home with them.  I let each one pop a disk in their goody bag when we handed them out later in the day.  I took each child's picture as an astranaut and had each one sign the astranaut poster for Ryan. 

We had lunch and opened gifts.  With a half hour of the party left, Ryan handed out the goodie bags and the inflated astranauts along with the space folders and placemats.  As the children opened their gifts from us, I put in a Magic School Bus Space movie and set out some solar system books for the kids to look at while waiting for their parents to pick them up.  It was a nice way to wind up our party.

We made frames for the kids pictures and added them to the thank you notes from Ryan.  It was a tough theme but we had a great time using our imaginations to create a wonderful party for our son and his friends.  I hope you find some ideas here that you can use for your next space party.  Good luck and have fun!

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