Minecraft Birthday Party Plan

I was exhausted but getting closer to actually having the birthday party ready to roll for 16active  kids!  My son had a long list and would you believe that this is what we narrowed the list down to!  He said that he wanted to do all things Minecraft.  I started a pinterest board here.

We started with Pin the Tail on the Enderdragon which I looked forever for and found this one after we already printed the other one.  I was a little sad because we printed a large poster and the tails from this one don't fit on ours unless we go back and print them on the poster paper.

We made a box like a Minecraft head to put over the kids heads like a blind fold but the kids preferred to use the paper grocery bag because it didn't tip as much.  They had a blast and each person's name was on the tail so they compared how everyone did.

Because we had so many kids we decided to do four stations which means that I split the kids into 4 groups which helps to cut down on the crazy.  I made activity books with lots of free printables that I found all over online including coloring sheets, mazes, crosswords and these neat color by number squares (here). 

The books were different colors for the different teams and had the Minecraft logo, the child's name, the team name, and the order of their stations (the schedule).  This was team Gold and their schedule.

The first station was Minecraft elements which are cubes made into elements.  There were paper cubes to cut out and put together with tape and glue sticks.  There were some here and some here.

There were wooden cubes that were painted gray that the kids could paint or glitter glue any color they liked.  We put them on small plates and sent them home next to their goodie bags if they were too much of a mess.  My son's wasn't painted that much and was mostly dry by the time we left.

The cubes were really easy to make.  My husband took a spindle from our old deck railing and cut it so that it was in cubes and I painted them so there was a base color to work from.

The second station was make your own Minecraft skin which for those of you mom's like me who don't know the Minecraft lingo, it is like a square mask but I decided not to cut eye holes.  Here is a blog that actually used sticks but my husband and I felt that would make it less mask like and more like a weapon they could use so we went without sticks (it also made it cheaper). I made ours a little smaller because it seemed a more reasonable size and I could make the cubes small and square and they fit down this block in an even number.

I got ready by making the squares from old cardboard boxes and the cut up cubes from colored construction paper that I had around the house.  To try to stay organized, I put it in egg cartons so that I would have 12 colors for each group.

I made way too much but I was worried that they would use everything and the last group would have nothing.  They made very different masks based on their interests.  There were little guides on the table if they wanted to make something specific or they could make their own.

The third station was the Minecraft games including Creeper toss which was square holes cut into a stand up cardboard that was painted green and the kids had to throw the soft balls through and try to get points.  Turns out we kept it in the basement for two years and I have no pictures of it.  We did a large piece of painted cardboard and folded the cardboard backwards instead of this sample found on the internet here.

We also had Minecraft bowling which was kids bowling pins that we already had that I labeled with the different Minecraft things and the kids loved it.

We had another game we didn't use where we took songs from You Tube and played a musical spots like musical chairs but with Minecraft spots on the ground.  You could easily use some of the many elements or food labels if you wanted to make these too.

The forth station was a Minecraft world with a long roll of white paper and little stickers that were in Minecraft designs and markers so that the kids could make up their own Minecraft world.  I put all of the stickers in egg cartons too so that we would have one per group.  I just printed the design that I found online on return address labels that we already had and cut them into cube shapes by making strips.

We also did Minecraft Bingo at the end of the party after cupcakes until the parents were there to pick up their kids so that we could keep them contained near the door and in chairs.  It has always been a party favorite each year so I decided to go with this one.  It was nice because there were 20 cards and we had a bunch of kids coming so I knew that it would be enough for everyone.

I was hoping for everything to go well and get lots of pictures but that is always hard to do while trying to keep tons of children under control.  It was great and all the kids had a blast but I didn't get nearly the amount of pictures that I would have likes to share.

Before the party, I use paper grocery bags for the goodie bags and decorate them with the kids name and pictures from the theme.  It is super cheap and easy to hold all of the things we are sending home.  At this party, they decorated square cookies like Minecraft blocks and they could eat one and bring one home (or both if they decided) after we had pizza at the beginning.  Some were very well thought out and others were crazy but everyone had fun.  I label the plates first and wrap in foil to keep in all the sprinkles.  I label the plates first and wrap in foil to keep in all the sprinkles. 

They also got their book with activities, bookmarks (here and here), a few of my son's favorite candies, and all the crafts that they made at each station.  I like sending them home with their own work instead of junk purchased at the store that they won't use again.  Most of the kids really enjoy it and leave with more things that they can do at home. My one crafty thing was a TNT labeled party popper that my son asked for because we had some leftover from a 4th of July box, I said yes.  I printed the papers here.

I hope that this helps you come up with a few things that are helpful to make your own Minecraft party.  I mostly come up with ideas that work with things that we have around the house so that I can make the most frugal but fun party that I can come up with.  I hope that you can find some fun things around your house to turn into Minecraft fun!!

Kids Wednesday: Planning a Pokemon Party

My son declared that he wanted a Pokemon party for his birthday so I drove right into Pinterest and found way too many ideas. It was overwhelming to say the least so I decided on a plan on what we had time for during the birthday party.

I wanted to make a sign that said Happy Birthday with pokeballs and there are tons of ideas.  I decided to take the easy way out and just do the printed one here.  All you have to do is download and print and I will put holes in them and thread on curling ribbon to hang on the wall.

We looked high and low and found a Pin the Tail on the Pikachu. There is one that is already separated so that it can be printed on papers and put together but my husband has acess to a large format printer so I actually wanted to get one that was one image and enlarge it so I was little sad but I figure that this is probably better for 99% of the people which you can find here.  I actually downloaded the image and made my own!!!  Loved the picture so super happy to find it and use it.

I also thought that it would be really fun to make our own Pokemon cards.  I found this awesome card template here.

We decided that we were going to make pokeballs but had to figure out a plan to make them that won't get them thrown around at the party but that they would still like to use.  I found these and thought that they would be fun but they needs the special plastic ornament which I couldn't find so they were out but still super cool.  You can check out these here.

We decided that it would be fun to use duct tape and frisbees to make them so that the kids would have to use them outside to get the distance but can hold them like a shield which is totally fine by me!!

I found an awesome popcorn container and since we were planning on having popcorn, it seemed like a good idea even though it would take a lot of work on my part (as most of the things would).  They were super colorful and I thought the kids would enjoy them.  Check them out here.

Another fun one is the poke ball designer page because this can be a great station for creativity or copying the basic balls that they know.  If we do some ahead of time then we also have some fun decorations so I think that I am going to have some coloring fun!!  Check out this site to get your own copy.

There is a really cute box that the kids can cut and fold themselves.  It is super easy to print and if we don't do it at the party, I will put it in their bags to bring home to make at home.  If you want to make your own, download it here.

There is another great site with a pokeball and lots of pokemon to put inside it here.  This looks like something that my son would love to have and play with all the time.  I could print it and laminate it to have hours of fun with!!!

 I found a memory game that would also be fun to print and laminate to play with for awhile to come.

There is a interesting maze that you can download here.  I looked every where for coloring pages and dot to dot pictures.  There are lots out there but none that made me really happy.  There are a ton of different downloads and this was a great site for some great resources.

There is another great activity that I wanted to do but wasn't sure if we had time to do it but it seemed like a lot of fun.  It was Pokemon eggs which I would make ahead of time with my son and then each group of kids would have the chance to hatch their own.  Here is the site that made them so if I don't get time to do it at the party, my son and I are totally going to make them!!

I thought that I would get a few activities that got their wiggles out including a little follow the leader with what the Pokemon would do. Super easy to print out and pull out of a hat and we will have it ready if we need.  You can print your own here.

There is this blowing activity where the kids blow through a straw to make the Poke Ball move from the start to the end.  There is an example here but I have also seen it with a ping pong ball so we might try to do this activity.

I hope that you enjoy some of these ideas to have your cheap Pokemon party.  We got clearance cups, plates and napkins in red from Christmas so we had tons of paper goods.  I grabbed a bag of red and white balloons at the Dollar Tree for the decorations and games.  With a little work, we have entertainment and goodies for everyone to do at the party and bring home with them.  I know that I have enjoyed searching around for the best ideas that work on a tight budget!!  I hope that my work has saved you some time!!!  Hope that you have a great time with these ideas for your own children or birthday party.

F is for Feather, Flower, Flamingos, Firetrucks and more

 There are so many words that start with F so it is hard to know where to start!!  I usually make a list of the words that I think would be good projects or good words to look for in books.

F is for feather, flower, finger prints, flamingos, firetrucks, firemen, fish, fox, fly, frog, feet, fork, farm and fall.

This is a great chart that we are using in our classroom to talk about the letter and how it is formed.  The great thing is that it can be laminated and used for every letter or you can do a smaller version that you have for each letter if only doing one on one.  It is a great format to talk about the letter.

With school and with my son, picking some books with each letter is very important.  Some of our "F book" favorites are:

Fire Truck 

by Peter Sis

Froggy Goes to School

by  Jonathan Londen

and all of the other great Froggy series

Frog and Toad Series

by Arnold Lobel

The Farm Alphabet Book,  

by Jane Miller

Flynn Saves the Day

by Rev. W. Awdry and Richard Courtney

For a list of more F books, please look here.

There are some activities suggested on the Measured Mom website here.   With my son we did lots of things including dressing up in a firemen's costume and playing a hiding game under the fire hats.

We also put together a firetruck floor puzzle from Melissa and Doug that I got at a consignment sale which we use quite often.  It make a really big puzzle across a large part of the floor.

At school we have frogs that the kids can line up and make patterns or just arrange on the log for fun.  These always seem to be popular.  There are small, medium and large which are often mommy, daddy and baby frogs with the kids.

In the media table we had a fishing game.  They are magnetic fishing poles and they can pick up fish out of the blue and green pellets.  This is a big set from Lakeshore Learning which can be found here.

At home, we did it on a smaller scale with this fishing puzzle we had from Melissa and Doug.  It was easier to use the puzzle but we also pulled the pieces out and put them on a blue sheet to represent the water.  My son used the couch pillow to sit on an "island" outside the water to fish for them.

At school we made paper plate foxes with tissue paper and orange ears, two eyes and a nose.

We also made fall trees where the children used a bundle of q-tips to paint with and they dipped them into red, orange and yellow paint to make the fall leaves on the tree that they colored.  You can see that they are all unique.  It is also a nice F word to use a crushed up piece of foil to make these neat leaves.

There are some great resourced out there to print for free including the F monster from education.com website and many other F activities including tracing pages, puzzles and mazes found here.  There is a limit of how many things that you can download a month but it is free to set up an account to get these great resources.

There is another site that is free and doesn't need a log on but it is a little harder to navigate.  There is a letter in both color and black and white which has the letter uppercase and lower case to trace and then a word.  There are also some areas for the dot marker.  We bought the bingo daubers at the dollar store in every color that they came in and I can tell you that my son is almost 8 years old and I still find uses for them including his Book It Reading Calendar!!  They are still going strong and not running out so he was able to pick out a color or make a pattern to make.  Here is a link to all the letters.

The kids also did the fish book page that is going to be part of a book at the end of the year with a letter for each one that we studied so that they can have their own book.  It is a lot like the one on this website and they provide the template if you want to make your own!!

At school, they also decorate the letters that go up on the wall with the items that start with the letter.  We did feathers and finger prints and each kid put a few on both.

Hope that you and yours have fun finding all the F things that you can do because there are so many ways to add fun to learning about letters!!!