Shirley's Party Advice Part 7 - how did they all get so big...

[stealthsquiggle]

Part 7 - link to previous one to follow!

That is a fab outfit stealth. So many parents were commenting today about how their kids had actually really needed yesterdays strike day. It's been a long half term and everyone is tired.

I uploaded some pics of last years halloween dinner but the only one I could find of the orange pumpkins has DS in it so it won't be up for long. It wouldn't work as party food but I thought you might like to see anyway :)

I'm supposed to take pizza to the party we're going to this year and I'm already dreaming up ways to make it special

Thank you Blathers for sharing your Halloween photos - I think am going to do the jelly pumpkins!

And your cakes - wow!

I will also have a look on pinterest for Halloween food, not long to go now. And I have a busy week at work this week.

I would have loved a dragon outfit like that when I was little.

After some much needed sleep, DD has decided this morning that she does want to invest in that dragon outfit . DS is a little miffed that it doesn't come in his size.

Blathers that food is so lovingly done. And ds looks so much like you in that picture!

Poor kid

Hello - trying to get organised again for Feb birthdays as work is manic after Christmas so need to start getting sorted now.

Currently working on dd1's 9th birthday - going to be a mystery party/scooby doo, mainly girls at home. Planning to do some spy type training followed by solving a mystery. Working on party bags at the moment. Have ordered some ring watches to synchronise -34p, some led lights, 11p each. Will make some fake ids etc.

Also might get some theromochromatic dots to make lie detector cards. Have also seen some mini compass, and maybe invisible ink pens/frixion pen and spy notebook. Any other cheapish ideas? Have had to ditch plan to do psychedelic tye dye t-shirts due to cost/hassle.

Will also need something to put them in to take home- wondered about massacring some envelopes and putting top secret on them, or is that to cheap?

I am planning to bring the bits out one at a time (e.g. watches at beginning to synchronise, lie detectors when they capture an informant, etc) so there won't be new stuff to take home at end, hoping by 9 they will understand that they have their stuff already does that sound reasonable?

Hi, hoping to interrupt and get some ideas. You helped me with a dinosaur party for my 3 year old DD in March and it was fabulous (she still talks about it as if it was yesterday. We've been talking about birthday parties and she wants a zog party for her 4th birthday. Still plenty of time to change her mind but I think it sounds like great fun so I've been thinking about what I could do already!

Current plans (bear in mind I've only been thinking about this whilst DD has been watching toy story this afternoon, so not very long) are:

Children arrive (with dinosaur tails if they came to that party as they can also be used for dragon tails) at Madame Dragon's school and get given some dragon wings.

I dress up as madam dragon (tail, wings and mortarboard), take the register and have some lessons / party games:

Lesson 1: learning how to fly - running around game wearing the wings (a variation of musical statues)
Lesson 2: learning how to roar - lots of shouting, not sure exactly what game this could be??
Lesson 3: breathing fire - ????
Lesson 4: capturing a princess - treasure hunt to find a peg doll princesses
Lesson 5: learning how to fight - decorating cardboard swords and crowns with stick on gems (hopefully no actual fighting involved!)

Pass the parcel - each child wins a golden star badge. We've got the zog book with cd so can have the flying doctors song on a loop.

At some point we'll need to read the book since not everyone will know it.

Party bags - I was thinking about getting some cheap canvas bags and making them into doctors bags by putting a red cross and the child's name on the front with fabric paints. Inside a bandage, some plasters and some sweets (soothing peppermints). I saw that Baker Ross have a sticker set with dragons, knights and princesses in it. I had a similar dinosaur set earlier in the year and it went down well.

Food/decorations/cake - dragon, princess, knight, doctor themed - lots of choice there!

Not sure how many children to invite - we only had about 10 to her 3rd birthday. But she's been to a few whole class parties, so if we do the same it could be around 30 people - eek 30 dragon wings and peg dolls to make!

That's a rather long post isn't it? What do you think? Any ideas for games that could fit into roaring/breathing fire? I had a google / Pinterest search for zog parties and couldn't find anything....

I've just had a thought. Breathing fire could be "pin the fire on the dragon". I just need to work out a good roaring game now...

I'm looking forward to this! DD had better not change her mind

Zog party is an amazing idea and I am very .

You'll be needing a horse.

Will answer that and scooby post later when waiting for plane (again [sigh])

Ok. Blew that. On plane now . Try again later.

I'll do a proper reply later but couldnt the fire bit be the point that you get dd to blow out the candles on her cake?

DW that's a good suggestion, I was wondering how I was going to fit the food in. I guess that the only problem with that is that the blowing out fire is fairly early on in the book and at most parties I have been to the food and cake is at the end once the kids have worn themselves out from running around. Although I could switch the timing round though and have it start at 11am, say. Do you think blowing out candles as opposed to breathing out fire might be a bit too subtle for a 4 year old? Although, thinking about it, I could do pin the fire on the dragon but as an extra twist get the kids to pick their "fire" when blindfolded and have some of them pick out snow, ie "Breathe out fire not snow"

Stealth I have a horse! Well only a stick horse and a horse space hopper type of thing (although it looks more like a donkey). Not sure how I could incorporate these into a party?

Thanks for the help

Could you get some red/orange/yellow party blowers for fire? Could you make some maybe?

Are you going to give out plasters, mints and stretchy bandage at appropriate points?

Love that book :) stealth and I both have dragon obsessed DD's so hopefully we can help with this one.

Don't worry birthdaybunnies, I also have a Scooby Doo loving DS

Fire party blowers a bit like this. I'm sure you could make something better...

Could you do something like this for fire lessons?

Fab idea, although maybe I should get ear plugs for the adults as well. A roaring game immediately followed by the party blowers might be too much for some of them!

I was going to give out the plasters, mints and bandages at the end. But maybe I should give out wings and the bags at the start then the plasters, mints and bandages after each game (although my guess would be that they just cover themselves with the plasters when they get those if DD and her best friend are anything to go by).

I still have almost 5 months to plan the details..... (I'm ignoring the fact that I have lots of half finished projects that I need to finish so should really be concentrating on those rather than starting something new)

I found these variations of the toilet roll fire breathing dragon on Pinterest

here and here

I guess that it would be best to make them in advance rather than have this as a craft. It would take too long for any glue to dry so they couldn't be used immediately.

Those paper cup fire blowers could work as a craft activity if you used (pre-applied) double sided sticky tape instead of glue. Then they could do target practice with them blowing ping pong balls off stands (kitchen roll or wrapping paper tubes?)

Not sure about roaring - some variant of grandfather's footsteps where they have to sneak up and then roar, maybe? Then you have to practice rescuing princesses somehow.

Just as well you have 5 months, really - this could get complicated

No, the fun is in making them! You can buy self adhesive googly eyes with peel off backing and sellotape or even double sided tape would work instead of glue. You could even replace painting with felt tip pens if you get the right cups

Good x post stealth :)

Scooby doo/spies. When we did spy party, we split them into teams (and assigned an adult helper to each team) - every time they finished a game/activity the team for another bit of a jigsaw, IIRC. When complete, the jigsaw gave them a code, which they had to put into a computer (DB2 wrote a little simulated safe interface) which opened the "safe" which their party bags were in. My ScoobyDoo knowledge is sadly lacking, so I have only idea how that could be adapted. I did make a mystery machine cake once though

Obviously food is easy for a Scooby Doo party. Pretty much anything goes :) I'd be tempted to do bone shaped biscuits and call them Scooby Snacks though.

And you need an adult dressed as something that you can unmask at the end to complain that s/he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you pesky kids

Teams probably sound like a good idea - was it competitive or did the teams work in parallel? Our house is a bit tiny so maybe working in parallel would work better. But teams probably preferable to 12 charging together! Was it an actual jigsaw? How many pieces? eyes up fifi and flowertots set and wonders if any of them still has correct number of pieces

How long did the mission bit last? I am having trouble thinking about the timeline - I've done the usual treasure hunt with normal clues which is 5 mins or so of pure charge; but I was thinking for this probably go, get a clue come back solve the code etc. Will be tricky trying to pitch the level right tempted to throw in some NVR clues to work out how many already being tutored for 11+!!

Not sure how much is still going to be scooby doo, I think a few acents maybe in some of the filler games and probably the cake.

What did you do for party bags? not that I'm obsessed Hope your flight has taken you somewhere fun.

scooby snack cutter

:) already planning to cast dd1's godfather as the villain as many of them won't know him. Having real dilemma of identity though as above. Dd1 loves scooby but also the wider world of mystery - helen moss, harry potter, roman mysteries. Just wondering whether her friends at 8/9 have moved beyond scooby doo.