dora the explorer parties

[twinklytoes]

dd2 would like a dora party for her 4th. but need some ideas to se tme in the right direction.

this is her first real (friends) party as she missed out last year as I was in hospital on bed rest with placenta previa IV, so really want to push the boat out this year.

Do you have a big garden (or if you are brave ) a big park nearby where you can set them off on some sort of Dora style nature hunt?

You need Katz. She is away until tomorrow, but back then. She did a Dora borthday for her DD's 4th birthday party in June. Worked really well.

She based the party on a Dora adventure story, She used the Dora books to make up her own adventure. She created it as a soft backed book on BonusPrint. This then was given to the birthday girl to start the party.

Story started upstairs in bedroom. The book was in a backpack (made out of box) and contained the boo and a t shirt for each child. Katz bought cheap white t shirts and printable transfer sheets, and created t shirts with one Dora character for each t shirt. The girls wore these.

The story began where the girls made bracelts using yellow star beads.

Swiper (her DH) then came and swiped the beads and hid them in the party cave (tent downstairs).

The book showed the map of where to go and guided the girls through the story:

• down the stairs (can't remember what their name was) where they had to count the steps to the bottom.

• bottom of stairs was lots of green crepe paper hanging from ceiling (vines) which they had to cut down using scissors they found int he Dora backpack.

• they then made their way through Alphabet Village - happyland houses in living room with alphabet letters across room. Girls sang the alphabe song through it.

• then the got to the secret cave where they had to solve the grump old troll's riddle (my DH) to enter

• inside the cave was glow lights and the beads, they got to finish these and play games as the secre of the cave was party games - pin the tail on Boots, pass the parcel, etc.

• they also played catch the stars which were helium filled stars int he room.

Katz downloaded the Dora CD from iTunes with allt he relevant songs on such as Swiper's tune, the alphabet song.

The party pags were purple paper pags witth Backback style faces on them. Children added their scissors and their pass the parcel toys, glow stick and bracelts to them as we went through the game. They each kept their t shirt and balloons too.

The food was a mexican feast of tortillas - strips of chicken, peppers, sour cream guacamole, cheese, etc.

It worked really well and the girls reall enjoyed it.

Katz will be able to tell you more when she gets back though.

hula - I knew there was someone who did one. thanks for all that. i will catch up with katz.

feed - yep got the garden space and large park about 3mins away so thats sorted.

hi twinkly, hula sent me in this direction. party as hula described. just about to go out but will pop some photo's on my profile of the party bags, t-shirts and find all the links i used.

ok

have uploaded pictures to my profile.

In advance i made/bought:

10 x dora t-shirts picture on profile, i used images from here nickjr printed on t-shirt transfer papaer from ebay and plain white tshirts 2 for £1.50 from asda

1 x large dora backpack picture on profile, a cardboard box covered in purple paper with eyes and mouth

1 x map of the route, picture on profile, which went down the steep steps, then though Alphabet Town to get to the secret cave.

10 x dora partybags on profile, purple paper bags with boggly eyes stuck on and mouths draw on white a black pen.

1 x pin the tail on boots printed from here and stuck onto cardboard

i bought glow sticks off of ebay but wilkinsons also have them.

10 x pairs of paper scissors

in the living room i pictched a tent and inside put a load of glowsticks, a backpack with individually wrapped small treats to play pass the backpack and the pin the tail on the boots. I printed out letters of the alphabet and laid these in the floor surrounded by happyland buildings to represent alphabet town.

i bought yellow beads and flower beads off of ebay to make dora style bracelets.

I made a storybook, which i scanned in pictures from Dora books, took pictures from the web and made some of my own and then uploaded to bonusprint and had printed off.

on the day as the children arrived they were shepherded upstairs once all were up there, hula and my DH hung green paper streamers from the hall ceiling.

We started the story:

'Hola! This is Dora. Today we're making friendship bracelets. Do you want to make a friendship bracelet?'

so i got out the beads and elastic and with Hula's help we started making bracelets.

then i played the swipper music and continued the story

'Uh-oh that sounds like Swiper the Fox! That sneaky fox will try to swipe the beads. If you see Swiper say 'Swiper no.........''

in came DH with a tshirt with swiper on and swiped the beads and ran off with them

story - 'Oh no! We're too late. Swiper has swiped the beads and hidden them in the sceret cave. Will you help Dora to get them back? Great!'

story - 'Dora needs you all to become her friends for the afternoon so get your t-shirts on and let's go on an adventure.'

i passed dd2 the big box backpack and she opened it and passed a character tshort to each of her friends.

story - 'Great, now you're all ready we can go and find the beads hidden in the secret cave. Who do we ask for help when we don't know which way to go? Map! say 'Map!'

we then opened the map from in the big box

story - 'Map says that to get the beads back we have to go down the steep steps, then though Alphabet Town to get to the secret cave.'

we then walked out of the bedroom and to the top of the stairs.

story - 'Wow! These steps are really steep! Let's hold the rail and count the steps.
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen.'

and down the stairs we went were we got to the hall covered in the streamers.

story - 'Great counting! We made it down the steep steps but look these vines are blocking our way. We need to find a way to get through these vines. We could use some scissors to cut them down.'

in DD2's backpack i had hidden the 10 pairs of scissors

story - 'Will you check in backpack for some scissors? You have to say backpack.Can you find a pair of scissors in my backpack? We need them to cut the vines.'

we opened the backpack and gave everyone a pair and they cut the vines down.

story - 'Snip! Snip! Snip! Great cutting, next off to Alphabet Town.'

we then went into the living room

story - 'We need to follow the alphabet along the street to get through Alphabet Town. Sing the alphabet. A B C D E F G H I J L K M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z. Yay! We made it through Alphabet Town! So where do we go next? Yeah the cave! I can see Swiper. He's hiding our beads in the cave.'

and the children walked through alphabet town. Hula's DH then sat outside the tent wearing a t-shirt with a picture of the grumpy old troll on.

story - 'Oh no! The Grumpy Old Troll won't let us in the cave unless we solve his riddle. Can you help us solve it? 'Here is one of my hardest quizzes' says the Grumpy Old Troll. 'Where do cows like to go in the evening?'

this is dd2's fav joke so she knew the answer

story - ''The Moovies! That's right.
We did it! We solved the Grumpy Old Troll's riddle, we can now go in the cave.'

we all then went into the cave

story - 'Oh no! It's very dark in this cave!
Can you see if backpack has something we can use to light the cave?

quick look in DD2's backpack and find more glowsticks and made them light up making bracelets and necklaces for all.

story - 'You found the glow sticks!
Great. Now we can explore the cave and find our beads.'

using the glowsticks we had a look around the cave and found the beads and the party games.

story - 'The secret cave is a party cave!
Let's finish making our bracelets and play some party games.'

at this point the plan had been to play games and finish the bracelets in the cave but it was a bit warm so we got out and played party games in the living room instead.

For dinner i served mexican food which went down really well.

The final game was catch the stars, helium filled balloons and stings.

katz - thank you somuch. sounds like a fabbo party. how long did you have the children for.

off to look at pics

I'll be dd2's bestest friend if I can pull something like this off, but need to accomodate for a bundle of 6yrolds too. well I have something as a starting point and dh has put a tent up in the garden, that no doubt will still be there come september.

did you make invitations or use the dora ones available in shops?

what did you do for cake? my sis usually makes the bday cakes as her present. DD2 has said dora but not been more specific.

twinkletoes - think the party was 2 hours

Katzs's 6y DD1 was there, as was my 7y DD. They had t shirts on with Dora's twin baby brother/sister on - Katz's DD2 thought it was funny they were the babies for a change. The big two joined in and helped the little ones, esp with the bracelet making and the alphabet. Think they quite enjoyed themselves too!

Katz made invites.

Sure Katz won't mind me answering as i am about.

Oh and I remeber they had cupcakes with plastic dora rings pushed into the top as decoration.

cheers hula.

just been spying those rings on ebay. think thats the way to go.

my dd will be ok. just not sure about the others. my friends through dd1 all had their second babies in the same academic year as me so by default have to invite them all. maybe I should just say no...4yr olds only.

Go for the 4y only, or maybe just invite one friend for DD.

Katz's DD2 had 7 friends, so 8x4y plus the big two, which worked really well.

think hula covered most of it, i was in bed asleep!

I did cheat with invites and bought them from Wilko's.

We has a similar problem with older children but decided that this was the first year it would be dd2's friends only, hula's DD is more of an extra big sister/bestest friend.

I got the rings off of ebay and plonked them on iced cupcakes, will pop picture on profile aswell, if you scroll to the bottom of my profile there is an older birthday cake which is also dora, this was very easy to make, i bought 4 of the tesco value victoria sandwiches and sandwiched 2 together and covered them in green ready to roll icing, took the yellow bridge out of the duplo box and 'joined' the 2 green cakes, made a path out of yellow icing and plonked on the dora figures. i added those icing flowers.

i had planned on having party in the park but went for indoors due to non-predictability of the weather.

if you want i can send you a copy of the book, you'd need to download the bonus print software and it should open your end.

lots of cake ideas here you'll need to scroll down past the adverts. i was going to do a funky one but ran out of time.

I forgot to say i got paper plates ect from wilkinsons, they had the older style dora ones with orange/yellow/red edging not the new ones which are pink. will pop a picture on my profile of the party table.

the other thing i bought was a dora scene setter which was on a roll to cover one wall in the living room and made a garden backdrop, i've tried to find it to link too but can't

cheers katz. I should ahve been asleep too.

DH has just asked about dd2's birthday and I told him Katz has got it sorted! his response "mumsnet then!" Haven't told him that he's going to be the grumpy troll.

the book would be lovely, thank you. r e b s 2 3 29 at yahoo dot co do uk. should really pay my subs!

I've got that duplo set too. am sure my dsis will put that to good use.

think dd1 will have two friends over and then it'll be the four yr olds.

i've seen those scene setters. was that an ebay purchase too?

lol! my DH thinks mumsnet is brill, answers most questions and solves most problems.

no i think i got the scene setter from partypieces but when i looked today they didn't have it.

will email over the book, it should open, you'll just need the bonusprint software which is free!

thankyou.

email sent - also included the t-shirt transfer pictures and i got the print-on-able sheets from here ebay shop

these beads

and these glowsticks

used ebay as were much cheaper than shops, plus i was being lazy!