Pi Party

My teenage daughter has a birthday around Pi Day (3/14).  What better way to celebrate than with all things Pi.  I made a Pi-nata for the occasion, with some inspiration from a St. Patty's Day craft found at the Celebration Generation blog.

In addition to smashing the Pi-nata, the kids enjoyed pi-neapple, pi-zza, pi-ckles, and of course, pi-e.  I was very impressed with two of my daughter's friends showed up with pies they made themselves.  One made a delicious rhubarb pie and one girl made a strawberry pie that I smuggled away from the teens and ate by myself. 

Just kidding. 

Sort of.

It was after sunset when we finally got around to taking aim at the pinata, so some of these pictures are a bit dark.

 Below, you can see that even big kids love candy.Teenage boys can smash pinatas pretty hard, I've learned.  Candy flew several yards. I'm still finding candy in the mint bed. 

Viking Birthday Party

What do Vikings like to do when someone turns 6? Throw a party, of course!

If you haven't looked for Viking birthday party supplies lately, you'd be surprised to learn that there just aren't any.  The trusty Internet also seems to have skipped the Viking theme as a viable party idea.  So, we were on our own when our youngest child announced that this year we would party like the Vikings.  Luckily, Lego and Playmobil toys make great party displays to set the mood.

For other decorations, we had to do some adapting.  Above, you'll see a Blues Clues banner that now sports a drawing of a Viking long ship taped over Blue's face.  (Making decorations provided the boys with a good outlet for the pre-party crazies.)

As you probably know, nothing beats brown paper lunch bags and some clip art when it comes to goody bags.  We stuck to candy, since clever-Viking-theme-goody-bag-junk just wasn't an option.

Our opening party activity is usually coloring, since kids can work on coloring while party guests arrive.  We found a few Viking coloring sheets online.

We made Viking shields ahead of time by cutting circles from card stock. 

Children picked a color for the shield and a color for the center circle. 

Using a Viking alphabet key, each boy found his name and glued it to his shield before decorating the shields.

When all the guests had arrived and were happily coloring and eating Viking food such as chicken nuggets and these long boat celery sticks,

we were visited by a friendly dragon who held a note in her mouth.  The note contained a quest for worthy Viking warriors and our party participants were excited to accept.

QUEST

Please help me! All of my baby dragon eggs have been stolen by a faraway kingdom. I need you to find them and save them.

For your quest, you will need

• A strong Viking hat

• A ship that can sail

• Skills to cross the rough seas

• Skills to defeat the castle of the kingdom

When you cross the rough seas and defeat the castle, you’ll surely find my eggs.

Thank you.

Be brave!

The first part of the quest involved our go-to party game, "Pin the ___ on the ___".  This time, it was "Pin the Viking helmet on the Viking", thanks to some great party props made by my oldest son.  This game never gets old.  Everyone was a winner and earned a fantastic Viking helmet.

To make ships that sail, we gave each boy a large square of aluminum foil, a skewer, and a square of paper.  The boys fashioned sails from the skewer and paper, and boats from the tin foil.  We tested each boat in a tub of water.  Admittedly, this would have been much more fun outside, but we had a rainy day and limited this part of the fun to our kitchen. Every boat was a success!

To "cross the rough seas" the boys had to make their way through an obstacle course my party helpers created in the basement.  Once again, this was intended as an outdoor party, but we made it work.  The kids had fun crawling through a tunnel, wading through a pool of stuffed animals, climbing over the couch, and shimmying under a blanket. Who wouldn't?

Now comes the part of the party in which a) the brave Vikings defeat the enemy castle, b) my older son revels in his love of catapults, and c) I find justification for the fact that I can't stop collecting wine corks.

I'm not sure why I never found this when I was a cub scout leader, but there is a wonderful tutorial online for making a simple catapult from a wire hanger.  We gave each boy a wire hanger, two rubber bands, and a plastic spoon.  With the help of my fantastic middle and high-school helpers, each boy made a catapult. 

We then shot spare corks at a castle made of corks.  (Had the weather cooperated, we would have shot ice cubes outside.)

Hidden in the castle was a note that directed us back upstairs to hunt for the hidden dragon eggs.

Once we found the eggs, we made a paper 3D dragon.  I found one online that I easily mimicked by drawing a dragon, drawing a simple wing shape, and printing both on card stock.  I cut them out ahead of time, slid the wings through a slit on the dragon shape, and the boys colored their 3D dragons, adding feathers or other decorations as they pleased. 

The dragons were fun for them to 'fly', by bouncing the wings up and down.

Finally, time for cake and opening presents!

I made the cake by inserting two chocolate covered bananas into a bundt cake.  The bundt cake was filled with a cupcake before icing.

(Yes, I removed the wrapper.)  I filled in the spaces with pieces from another cupcake.

For the family party that followed this kid-party, we enjoyed the remaining cupcakes, decorated with banana Runts and raspberry gum drops that my daughter fashioned into Viking hats. 

I am grateful to the college girl who works at the candy shop in our local mall.  She eagerly consulted with me about which candy combinations made the best Viking hat, saying that she appreciates a good challenge.

Greek Party, Part 5: Games

Parties need games, and lots of them.  A Greek Myth theme fits nicely with the format of a Quest, so we based all of our games on the need to fulfill a Quest.

Quest:  Earn three Drachma in order to play the Game of the Gods

[I found that it was cheaper to use pennies or nickels than it was to purchase fake gold coins. The Game of the Gods is what I called Left-Right-Center.  It is a great party game for this age group --fifth grade.  I got the idea of using LRC from Small Hours and Little Wonders.]

Boys had to win Drachma in a series of challenges given to us by characters in Greek Myths.

Dionysus Challenge #1:

A cookie is placed on each player's forehead.  Holding his hands behind his back, the player needs to try to eat the cookie.  If it drops, the player may pick it up and start over.

[Our winner got his cookie by very slowly and carefully raising his eyebrows and twitching his cheeks until the cookie was on his lips.]

Medusa Challenge:

In teams, the boys had to transfer rubber snakes from one bucket to another, while blindfolded and using only chopsticks (you can't look at or touch Medusa's snakes!).

The Sphinx Challenge:

Using the book What a Beast, by Sophia Kelly, my son read humorous descriptions of mythical beasts.  The winner was the guest who correctly guessed the most beasts.

Arachne's Challenge:

The boys sat in a circle.  One boy wrapped yarn from a ball around his ankle (loosely), and then tossed the ball to the boy who followed him alphabetically. The winner was the first boy who could not wrap the yarn because the ball ran out.  What a tangled web! (See their togas in the picture below...they did such a great job with their costumes. You can even spy Eros's wings.)

Dionysus Challenge #2:

We split up into two groups.  I gave each group a brief myth for them to act out.  Three judges (my two young party-helpers and myself) voted on the best skit to win.  I wasn't sure how the boys would like doing an activity that involved reading, but they loved putting on the skits.  For this challenge, I chose the stories of Daedalus's wings and Theseus vs the Minotaur. Both stories related to the labyrinth, and I wanted the guests to be familiar with the story so they'd better appreciate the labyrinth challenge which comes later in the quest.  Kid-friendly versions of the myths can be found online.

Zeus Challenge:

Toilet paper togas!  Need I say more?

Teams worked within a time limit to dress one team member in a toga that would stay on by itself.

Hercules Challenge:

We hid symbols of each of Hercules 12 Labors in the yard and teams competed to find the most.

I got the idea for using the 12 Labors from this site.

Our gang had to find a lion, a hydra, a stag, a boar, a sponge and dustpan (to represent cleaning the stables), birds (we hid ten), a bull, mares (we hid 17), a belt, cattle (we hid nine cows), an apple, and Cerberus, the three-headed dog.  Most of what we hid were toys we had (we have toys of Cerberus and the hydra, believe it or not), but pictures would work, too.  The apples had to be picked from our trees (took the boys a while to figure that out).  A list of Hercules' labors can be found online or in the book Oh My Gods, by Megan Bryant.

Dionysus Challenge #3:

My helpers (my daughter and niece) hid a cookie in a plate of whipped cream for each boy.  Hands behind the back, the first boy to find the cookie with his mouth was the winner.  The boys quickly realized that the 'real' winner was anyone with a face full of whipped cream!

Theseus Challenge:

Find the toy minotaur hidden in the labyrinth!

After the challenges, all of the boys had enough coins to play Left-Right-Center.  It was lots of fun. We followed the game with cake and presents.  The boys then played outside in the labyrinth until pick-up time.

Greek Party, Part 3: Costumes and Cake

COSTUMES

Using a headband and some sparkly leaves, it is easy to make a laurel wreath for a costume. (The blue and green sparkly sticks are seaweed for Poseidon.)

I used clear tape to wrap the leaf stems around the headband.  If this was something I wanted to keep for a long time, I'd use floral tape, but I was aiming to just use this wreath for the party and perhaps reuse the materials afterwards.

Poseidon's crown had the wavy blue and green sticks (which I removed from the stems) to give the illusion of ocean waves.  With a green toga on top of his light colored shirt, it looked great.  (There are lots of web sites describing how to don a toga, so I won't post that here.)

For his trident, I cut sparkly foam (it came with a sticky backing) for the front and back, and stuck the front and back together on a wooden dowel.  Couldn't be easier!

I added more of the wavy sticks to the base, once again to give the idea of water.

TRIDENT CAKE

My son wanted a spice cake trident for the party.  Normally, we like to bake from scratch, but I have found that to shape a cake, using a box mix is best.  Cakes from a mix tend to be quite sturdy.

I baked this cake in a 9 X 13 glass dish.  The top part of the trident was cut from the rectangle; from the discarded pieces, I shaped the bottom 'stick' of the trident.

Using a serrated knife, I sliced off the edges and top to make the two parts match.

For the icing, once again I find that store-bought icing is sturdier than home-made.  First, I added a crumb layer.  Then I added a top layer of icing and decorated the cake with colored sugar, green for the top and brown for the stick.  I sprinkled blue all over the cake and the tray.  To add details, I used sparkly gold gel.

Greek Party, Part 2: invitations and sources

Our Greek Myth party invitations were extremely simple. 

Not being able to find good clip art for Greek Myths, I stuck with simple columns to frame the page. 

The columns help conjure images of Greek temples. I used the font Castellar, but I'm sure there are more ancient- Greek-looking fonts out there on the web.

The invitations read:

Come Celebrate _____'s Birthday With Us

on ______(date)

We're going to party like it's 500 B.C.

If you can come 'in character', please do.

Consult the Oracle (enclosed) to learn your destiny.

Included in each envelope was a smaller envelope, marked "THE ORACLE".

Inside each Oracle envelope was a brief description and picture of a Greek god. 

We assigned each guest a different Greek god.  My son, of course, wanted to be Poseidon (who figures prominently in the Percy Jackson books).

So far, the invitations have been a hit and most guests have replied that they will come in costume!

Sources

There are a few other blogs on the web that describe Greek Mythology parties (or Percy Jackson parties).

Here are some that I used for inspiration:

Small Hours and Little Wonders for a detailed Percy Jackson party with lots of game ideas

Bright Hub for generic Percy Jackson ideas

eHow for generic ideas for a Greek Myth party

Make It Do for a detailed description of a Percy Jackson party (great cake picture!)

Greek Party, Part 1: Goody Bags

My son loves Greek Mythology and has been asking for years to use it as a theme for a birthday party.  I distracted him with other themes (what kind of seven year old has a toga party?), but now that Percy Jackson has made mythology popular again, the time has come.

I searched the web for ideas and found very few that were appropriate for the pre-frat-party crowd.  Over the next week or so, I'll share what I've found online as well as my original ideas for throwing a Greek Mythology party for kids. 

Let's start with GOODY BAGS!

You will need toilet paper tubes (or any tubes cut to that size), white paper, a marker, scissors, glue, Styrofoam pieces for the base and ceiling, and straight pins.

Using Martha Stewart's advice for egg dying, I have foam boards full of pins.  For this project, I'll remove the pins and flip the foam over so that no one can see those splotches of dye.

(It will get put back with the Easter decorations after this party.)

Cut the paper to fit the size of the tube; then glue the paper to each tube.

Draw lines on each tube.  Cut paper circles to tape on each end (but only tape one end right now).

Fill each tube with goodies.  I included a variety of candy, including a candy eye-ball to represent the eye of the Fates, a snake to represent Medusa, and a labyrinth I downloaded from the Percy Jackson web site.

To secure the pillars, I inserted pins diagonally up through the foam and into the bottom of each.

I also added one pin through the top of each pillar. This temple of goody bags will be moved several times between now and the party, so it needs to be somewhat stable.

Finally, I pinned a triangular sheet of paper on the front and back of the temple to complete the look. 

Cowboy Birthday Party

We've been busy--throwing a Cowboy Birthday Party for N, who turned five last month.  The cowboy theme was his idea, and I was surprised at how little there is out there for small cowboys.  It seems that if a birthday theme is not commercial, you won't find tablecloths and matching cups for it anywhere local.

So we did the best we could!  Once N came up with the idea, I searched my house for related items, asked people I know to search around their homes, surfed the web and local stores for more ideas, and then tried to adapt party classics (pin the tail on the donkey, for instance) to fit our theme.  One web site I find particularly helpful is BirthdayPartyIdeas.com.

The only cowboy items I found to purchase were the plates, cups and napkins in the 'western' theme, pictured above.  We used a Toy Story cowboy Lego set for our cake topper, but otherwise tried to stay away from using too much Toy Story. 

We used star cookie cutters for the cake and the cupcakes, above, and my mother was clever enough to realize that if we used a Santa boot cookie cutter in May, it would look just like a cowboy boot! I used a toothpick to draw features on the boots, throwing on the occasional silver ball for decoration.

The craft store had foam western houses (for $7 each!!), so I adapted the idea.  I purchased western foam stickers (much cheaper!) and some craft sticks (even cheaper!).  I covered tissue boxes with the craft sticks, made doors and signs for each one from a large sheet of foam, and let the kids decorate the houses as an ice-breaker activity at the beginning of the party.  The houses served as place markers and goody bag holders. (Goody bags were just brown paper bags tied with twine and a bit of bandanna. Inside, guests would find candy, a small toy snake, a bison tattoo donated by a local bison farm, some playing cards, and whatever goodies the cowpokes earned throughout the party.)

For our party, we made up a wanted poster for RattleSnake Pete, wanted for scattering rattlesnake eggs all over the ranch. The kids went in search of RattleSnake Pete, starting with earning their sheriff badges in a game of "Pin the Badge on the Sheriff".  From there, they had to pan for gold (pennies and gold rocks from the craft store floral aisle) to get money for supplies. Panning for gold required a snack break, so we dined on Corn Puffs, which look a lot like golden nuggets.

 The first supplies needed were horses!

To get a horse, each cowpoke had to lasso a horse with a hula hoop.

The kids also played horseshoes at this area.  From there, the cowpokes needed guns, and to earn a squirt gun, they needed to take target practice.

[Just for the record, I have long been an opponent to guns in the house.  I caved on this stance for this party for several reasons, and I'll be honest and admit that one of those reasons is the fact that N is my youngest and I just don't feel like fighting an uphill battle anymore...my boys were born making battle noises and will turn anything--sticks, ribbons, noodles, grass--into guns.]

For target practice, the cowpokes needed to squirt a hole in the tissue paper target, which was fun to do with a squirt gun.

After target practice and some horse riding, we played There's A Snake In My Boot (based on the saying of Woody in Toy Story, when his string is pulled). I made a boot from an oats container and the cowpokes took turns throwing plastic snakes in the boot.  Winners (everyone's a winner!) got gummy snakes for a snack. 

The kids followed the trail to an area of the lawn where rattlesnake eggs were hidden everywhere (yes, I had to take out the Easter Eggs that I only put away a month before!) and found a large stuffed snake...Rattlesnake Pete was a real snake! Well, that put a new light on this 'criminal'.  No wonder there were snake eggs!

But since we can't have a dangerous snake at a party, the only solution was to confuse the snake and head it in the other direction.  We did this by playing 'hot potato' with the snake until it got dizzy and looked like it would leave us alone while we ate cake and ice cream.

I am thankful to my older children for helping to lead the small children through all the activities.  I am also thankful to my parents who supplied the hula hoops and many other party items.  : )