3487

Animals of the World -5yr- The Reptile Room

May 2001

Denise in Winder, Ga.  USA

Special Mention

For my daughter's 5th birthday she wanted an "Animals of the World" Party.  This was somewhat a challenge, but with the help of the internet and your website she had a great party with all her favorite animals included!

Her invitations were printed on earth tone paper and read Calling all Party Animals!  You are invited to Chanan's "Animals of the World" Birthday Party. It gave the details of the party and invited the kids to dress as their favorite animal.  It was printed in a "native" font and at the bottom it said "It's going to be WILD!"  On the front it had an elephant stamped in brown which had a  peanut shell glued to it's nose and some small jute rope glued on for it's tail. 

As the guest arrived they saw a stuffed dog and cat sitting on the mail box holding a sign  that said "Party Animals" with an arrow pointing towards the house. The front entrance had vines and Spanish moss running down both sides of the front door.  I live where there is a lot of Kudzu growing so I used it and it gave a great jungle effect. There was a snake hanging in the vines and on either side of the door was a huge stuffed tiger, elephant and a Komodo Dragon. 

On the door was a large sign that Read "It's a Jungle in Here." I printed this off the computer and in the background it had a jungle scene with a leopard on it. I had "jungle" music playing in the background. Since I had to include all the animals of the world I divided the party into three sections.  The Reptile Room was in the garage. The Jungle Room was the dining room and the backyard was the Backyard Barnyard. I made signs for each room from some scrap-booking supplies I found that had animals holding signs.  For the reptile room was a snake with a sign, the jungle room, a monkey and the backyard barnyard was a dog. I just wrote the room name on the signs and had these blown up and laminated.   As the guest came in they were given an animal mask to wear (if they were not already in costume). 

My daughter's favorite animals are dinosaurs, so they had to be included.  She dressed as a dinosaur and when her guest arrived she invited them to crawl through the DINO CAVE to get to the Reptile Room.  The cave was a refrigerator box I had set up in the hallway as they first came in.  We painted it black and covered the top with vines.  It had black plastic covering the openings at each end and inside were some glow in the dark dinosaurs, dinosaur bones and stars. As they entered I pressed a dinosaur toy that made great roaring sound effects.  The kids loved this and climbed through it again and again.  They then went to the Reptile Room which was decorated with all sorts of snakes, lizards and of course dinos.  In this room they decorated their own goodie bags with foam animals shapes.  They then played in the backyard while the other guest arrived. 

Next was the food in the jungle room.  We had Hot dogs, popcorn, etc.  Also some really cute jungle animal cupcakes which were on a platter surround by green coconut to make them look like they were hiding in the grass.  My little girl wanted a tiger cake and I wanted it to be 3-D.  So I went to my local grocery store and they had a 3-D shaggy dog cake.  The dog was laying on it's stomach with it's head between it's front paws. I spoke with the decorator and with a few changes this became a "Crouching Tiger Cake."  It turned out so cute! Of course we also had animal crackers and teddy grahams. 

For the jungle room decorations I hung more kudzu vines in the chandelier and their was a monkey and a snake dangling down over the food.  There also was a sign on the table that said "Please don't feed the animals."  after gift opening would have been games in the Backyard Barnyard, but it began to poor down rain.  The backyard had bails of hay and stuffed farm animals everywhere.  So what do you do with 22 kids when it's pouring down rain?  You move to the garage and make cotton candy.  I am so glad I had rented this machine.  The kids and adults both loved this. 

The games we would have played where Giraffe Stretch (eating donuts off of a jump rope held up over their heads, no hands allowed!)  The Hippo Plop (popping water balloons by sitting on a chair. The Kangaroo Hop (sack race) and the Animal Call (give a card with an animal picture on it -2 of each animal- to each kid and they make that animal noise until they find their partner making the same noise)  I got most of these games off this website!  We still played a couple of these in the garage.

For their goodie bags they were given animal book marks, animal bubbles, plastic snakes, candy and animal stickers.  All from oriental trading company. This was a great party all the kids had fun and my little girl loved it! For the thanks you notes I will send a picture of my little girl in her dino costume.  It will say "I Think You're Dino-mite! And thank them for the gift and coming to the party.

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