Candyland Party!

Sophia turned 6  a few weeks ago. And I went all out. ALL OUT. For three weeks all my free time was devoted to this party. And I’m still exhausted over it. It was  a great party, but I think I’ll try to find less time intensive activities and decorations for Natalie’s party in January.

I also decided I’m only going to do big parties for the kids from age 3 until they’re 8, and not go all out for other holidays like I used to. It’s just too much. That being said, I do these parties because I enjoy using my brain muscles in a different way, and they are so much fun during the party. Maybe someday I’ll do it as a business. But don’t expect any water bottle labels from me. That’s drawing the line. :)

This is the overall party post, you can jump on over here for Decorations and Cake and Favors.

When the kids arrived they decorated paper crowns for a later game, and put their name on gingerbread name tags.

Then we did games! Here’s a concise list of all the activities:

1. Peppermint Relay- race with a peppermint on a plastic knife. One kid smartly licked it and put in on the knife- she ran around and it never fell off!

2. Licorice Race- eat a pull and peel licorice without any hands. Thought this would be hard- they all did it in 20 seconds!

3. Gumdrop Guess- Guess how many gumdrops in a jar. Everyone’s guess was either 100 or 1,000. I had to tell them to guess over 100 to finally get someone to be picked as a winner.

4. Gingerbread Houses- Made these ahead of time, decorated during the party with colored marshmallows, gumdrops, trix candy, candy corn, skittles and leftover colored fondant.

5. Pin the Crown on Princess Lolly- Decorated paper crowns with lollipop cut outs  and crayons, then pinned them on blindfolded. More about this later.

6. Ice Cream Cone balloon toss- Scrapbook paper cut out and rolled into cones. Tossed balloons around and tried to catch with the cones.

7. Cake and Ice Cream and Presents- The best part of the party!

Ok, here’s some pics:

     

Lilly tried so hard and was so excited to get it in her mouth!

Gingerbread houses waiting to be frosted and decorated.

 

Princess Lolly game- Our blindfolds never worked. Sophia wanted this game, and then later said she loved it “Because I won at it at Rachel’s party.” So of course, when she doesn’t get it spot on at her party, she has a mini breakdown. We let her try again- and didn’t say anything as she pinned it as seen in the second picture. (Props to Meggan for getting this pic).

 

Ice cream toss cones- didn’t get a picture in action, I was too busy getting the cake ready!

Sophia with her birthday crown on from school, blowing out the candles-

The whole crew. I hope this picture ends up on Facebook in 20 years when all these kids are grown up! (Will we even have facebook then? who knows!)

Hooray for Candyland parties and my Sweet 6 year old Sophia!

Candyland Decorations

Welcome to Candyland!

Here’s all the decor we did for Sophia’s party. I basically wanted everyone to feel like they were inside the game. And I didn’t want to paint or spend tons of money.

I made each area out of bulletin board paper paper, from a teacher store. I attached it to the wall using blue painters tape or scotch tape. I used the Cricut and printer to make the signs you see next to each area. The sign on the door uses Candy Cane font I found on a free font site, then cut with the cricut.

 

Gingerbread Plum Tree- brown and green teacher  paper, purple paper plates into plums.

Peppermint Forest made out of Candy cane striped wrapping paper- 1.00 roll at Target dollar spot.

 

Candyland game wall leading into the kitchen- made out of plain cardstock squares, Jo-Ann fabrics or Meijer carries them. The candy garland is made out of paper plates spray adhesive together, with clear cellophane wrapped around. Then thread twisted around each to hang together. Gingerbread men on the squares cut out with the Cricut.

Gumdrop Mountain- butcher paper in bright colors, glitter glue for the snow caps on the mountains.

Licorice castle. Black and red bulletin board paper.

 

Gramma Nutt House- Brown, White and Green bulletin board paper with blue windows and doors out of cardstock.

Happy Birthday banner out of cardstock, from the rainbow birthday party last year.

 

Close up of one of the signs. 

Lollipops- made out of dowel rods, pack of 20 for 3.00 at Michaels, and paper plates spray adhesive glued together over the dowel rod. I also wrapped some of these in cellophane and put outside in planters on the walkway and on the mailbox.

 

Pin the crown on Princess Lolly- I free hand drew princess Lolly from the picture. Natalie and Sophia helped me color it in.

 

Ice Cream Balloons- normal balloons, waffle cones made out of craft paper, slightly bigger than balloon. It’s hard to attach the two together, so we had the balloons taped to the cone in the back, and sitting in a sundae cone so they’d be upright.

Gloppy from the Molasses Swamp- packing paper from an amazon shipment. Reduce Reuse Recycle people!

    

Candy Castle- bulletin board paper.

 

Whew! I’m tired just looking at all those decorations and it was almost a month ago!

Candyland Favors and Cake

Here’s some shots of the favors and food we did for the Candyland party:

Everyone put their name on a gingerbread kid and taped it to their shirt (so we knew who was who)

For the cake I made marshmallow fondant, dyed it 6 different colors, then rolled it out and cut squares with a mega block. Perfect size for candyland cake!

Natalie graciously put skittles all around the cake with her sister.

The cake, before the ice cream was put on the castle/ice cream sea. We used 11 by 17 pans, two chocolate cake mixes and two cans of frosting.

Basically candy all over, but the peppermint forest and the lollipop forest are plastic Christmas decorations from Dollar Store and Hobby Lobby, respectively.

We had cake and ice cream and veggies and dip for the adults who hung around.

Everyone went home with their gingerbread house. I made 20 of these the days before. Used royal icing, made from cream of tartar, powdered sugar and egg whites. Cut the side of the house to be a pentagon, put a square of icing on the plate, then made the house. Let it dry over night, then did the roof. Then everyone decorated the day of with shortening icing and all the candy.

 

To take home, everyone had a mini fabric tote bag, I made these a few weeks before the party. 18 bags from one yard of fabric and a few yards of ribbon. It was really hard to find fabric in the colorful color pallette I wanted and looking like some kind of candy theme. I wish their were rainbow blocks or something like that, but this was the closest I got. Each bag was 6 by 7 inches. The bag included dollar store necklaces (8 for a dollar), and random candy I got on sale after Halloween (and supplemented by my kids Halloween bucket).

Last but not least, I made Candy land coloring books. Downloaded free Candy land coloring pages, then added some additional candy puzzles. Cut and bound with the BindItAll, and glued characters from Candy land on the front (scanned from the game board instructions).

Here’s the pictures from the book, for your use. All I ask is you say “Thank you!”

I love these characters. Especially the Candyland kids. So dang cute.

I is for Ice Cream!

A few weeks ago I did the Letter I in Preschool.

1. We counted ice cream scoops on the board.
2. We made homemade ice cream in a can-(this recipe uses pudding mix)- I mixed the ingredients then put one cup scoops into sandwich bags, inside a larger gallon sized bag, rather than a smaller can inside. We used a #10 can from our food storage. While we rolled it we sang this song:

The super cold helps the milk freeze up
The super cold helps the milk freeze up
The super cold helps the milk freeze up
Freeze up really slow
Slow enough that the air gets trapped
Slow enough that the air gets trapped
Slow enough that the air gets trapped
To make our fluffy ice cream



 

3. We learned the ice cream song during music time

Ice Cream Songs

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
Rah! Rah! Rah!
Tuesdays, Mondays, we all scream for sundaes,
Sis-boom-bah!
Boola-boola, sarsaparoolla,
If you got chocolate, we’ll take vanoola!


I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
Rah! Rah! Rah!
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
Rah! Rah! Rah!
Frosts and malts that are peppered and salted,
Sis-boom-bah!
Oh, spumoni, oh, cartoni,
And confidentially, we’ll take baloney,


I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
Rah! Rah! Rah!
Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!

4. We read Curious George Goes to the Ice Cream Shop during reading time.

5. More ideas for an ice or ice cream theme:

Make an igloo out of sugar cubes or marshmallows (use an upside down paper cup as a base to glue on)

Cut and past ice cream sundaes with glitter as decorations

Make pipe cleaner and clear beads into icicles or snowflakes

Have a pretend ice cream shop where kids purchase ice cream from each other for set prices. (Math and role play)

 

Hooray for Ice Cream!