Today was Ethan's Second Birthday party! We had it at the local sports centre fun gym room. After much deliberation, we chose a Winnie the Pooh theme, as it seemed like an easy choice to find lots of things for. I really just wanted an easy party this year, so this sort of venue and theme seemed the perfect option.
Decorations:
It's a big room, so there was no way to decorate the whole place! We stuck to a small area, just doing the tables and putting up some banners and signs to point to the party. I also decided at the last minute to make some Winnie the Pooh character ears, getting the printouts from Merriment Design and attaching them to strips of paper rather than headbands.
- balloons
- banner and bunting
- tablecloths, trays, napkins
- snack boxes
- Hundred Acre Woods signs
- Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Piglet ears from the Merriment Design website
Activities and Games:
The room had a bouncy castle, giant slide, climbing frame and soft blocks in it, but for some reason I thought that might not be enough for the kids! So I made a few things, just in case.
- Pin the tail on Eeyore from the Disney Family website
- roll the dice and move like the character
- I printed out pictures of the characters onto card and stuck them onto a square tissue box
- toss the balls into the 'hunny' pot
- I covered a big bucket with blue paper, made a 'hunny' sign and cut yellow paper to look like dripping honey, then put in a couple of Winnie the Pooh balls and some other balls to toss in
- play in Winnie the Pooh's house
Food:
As it was a gym room, we technically weren't allowed to serve food. So we chose to have cupcakes instead of cake, as they would be easier to send home with each child. I also put out a lot of packaged snacks, and at the end we sat the children down to have a snack and then filled up the snack boxes with other snacks for them to take home.
- Winnie the Pooh cupcakes
- I can't take credit for these, after making Ethan's party cupcakes last year I found it so stressful trying to get them perfect that I decided to order the cupcakes this year. They turned out perfectly! I love how they even made the 'Happy Birthday' and 'Ethan' lettering on wooden signs to match with our other party signs (and they tasted amazing!)
- water (with personalised labels)
- packaged snacks (raisins, bars, puffs, crackers, biscuits) in snack boxes
Party Bags:
We used simple Winnie the Pooh party bags and filled them with some fun toys for our guests. As a few of Ethan's friends already have little siblings, we made little party bags for them as well (with just the book and teething ring).
We used simple Winnie the Pooh party bags and filled them with some fun toys for our guests. As a few of Ethan's friends already have little siblings, we made little party bags for them as well (with just the book and teething ring).
- little Winnie the Pooh book
- bubbles with labels
- smiley face maraca
- little ball
- Winnie the Pooh stickers
- homemade play dough in little pots with labels
- Winnie the Pooh teething ring for the baby siblings party bags
Ethan had so much fun at his party! He didn't nap at all today (we tried to have a simple morning so that he would, but somehow he must have known and been to excited to sleep). But he wasn't tired, he was the life of the party, running around with his friends the whole time! He loved jumping on the bouncy castle, sliding down the slide and climbing on the climbing frame.
The only problem for me was that I didn't have enough time to set up. I had it in my head that I had half an hour to set up, until I spoke to them a few days before and was told that I had only 15 minutes. I was worried then, and even more worried when we arrived to find the other party still going, giving us only 5 minutes to set up! This may be enough for the average party, but they clearly haven't met me! So of course we were still setting up when people arrived, so I was a bit flustered for the first 15 minutes of the party. Other than that (and a few completely normal 2 year old tantrums), everything ran really smoothly. I am glad that I made the extra games, even though they didn't all get used, I felt better being prepared. All of the children played together really nicely, they all seemed to find something that they enjoyed playing with and mostly just ran around in circles with excitement! I love parties! But I'm glad that this one is done for this year, now we can just go to Ethan's friends' parties and relax :)
Follow Play & Learn Everyday's board Play & Learn Everyday - Crafts and Activities from the Blog on Pinterest.
* This post contains affiliate links.*
2 comments
I love all the creative ideas you came up with to stimulate all aspects of learning for children of this age group.
ReplyDeleteThank you :) It was lots of fun...I think I miss teaching a bit, so this is a nice way to be able to plan activities for more than one child :)
Delete