School Parties Archives - Page 2 of 3

Graham Cracker Gingerbread Houses

Isn’t Christmas so fun?! One of our favorite holiday activities is making little gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.

Last Christmas, I helped A LOT of kids make candy-covered cottages. We made twenty in my son’s kindergarten class, thirty in my other son’s third grade class, and five at home. –So I am feeling like a real pro. Here’s what to do:

Gingerbread Houses

Collect empty milk cartons at school lunch. Rinse the cartons and leave right-side-up and open so they can dry. Once dry, close the cartons and staple the top so they will stay closed.

Milk Carton

Collect lots of sugary decorations and lay them out on plates. Some ideas for decorations include cereal, cookies, licorice, sprinkles, pretzels, gumdrops, candy canes, kisses, gingerbread men cookies, M&Ms, Smarties, jellybeans, coconut, chocolate chips, and gummy bears. At school, we sent a note home with the students to ask parents to donate candy and decorating supplies.

Decorations

Prepare Royal Icing. You’ll need to double/triple+ recipe if you are making many houses. I have found one recipe will make about five houses. I used 4 lbs of powdered sugar for 20 students and 6 lbs for 30 students when we made the houses at school.

Recipe for Royal Icing

1 lb. powdered sugar

1 tsp. lemon juice or vanilla

2 egg whites

Put the egg whites in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until frothy. Stir in lemon juice. Add sugar. Beat with mixer until thoroughly mixed. The icing should be very thick but thin enough to push through a small decorating tip.

Scoop the icing into quart size Ziploc bags– two large scoops per bag. When you are ready to work on the houses, snip a corner off the bag, then push the icing toward that corner to pipe out.

Before the kids begin, give each child two small paper plates, 6 graham cracker squares, and a milk carton. One paper plate will be used as the base for the house. The other will be used to carry candy and other sugary decorations from one location to another. –At home we didn’t need two plates because the candy was on the same table as the children. At school, we had a table with all the treats and the students worked at their individual desks/tables.

Royal Icing

Explain to the kids that you and the other adults will be the “gluers”. Divide your group into manageable sections– 4-8 kids per adult. The kids should raise their hands whenever they need more icing. The adults roam around the room, piping out icing as needed, and complimenting the little engineers with great enthusiasm.

Gingerbread House

Happy building and Merry Christmas!

Spin the Bottle for Kids

This is a good game for preschool and elementary school children. You’ll want a group of 5-8 people. This is another game I use a lot at school for holiday parties. It is usually one of several “centers” at the party. I use a butternut or spaghetti squash instead of a bottle for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I put heart stickers on my bottle for Valentines Day.

Setting: Outdoor or Indoor

Supplies: Bottle and bowl of challenges

Game Instructions: Write several challenges/tasks on strips of paper. Put them in a bowl. The kids take turns spinning the bottle. When the bottle stops spinning, whomever the bottle is pointing to must choose a strip of paper and follow the instructions.

Examples of Challenges

-Build a pyramid with your group. You be on the top.

-Give everyone in the circle a high five.

-Skip around the circle yelling, “Look at me! I’m so fabulous!”

-Tell one of your favorite jokes.

-Sing “Happy Birthday” to the person on your right.

-Jump over every person in your group, leap-frog style.

-Crawl under the legs of every person in your group like a snake.

-Sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” without showing your teeth.

-Make 4 different silly faces.

-Spin around in a circle ten times. Hope you’re not too dizzy!

Examples of Halloween Challenges (Spin the Squash)

-Ride a broom around the circle and cackle like a witch.

-Your friends must wrap you up like a mummy using a roll of toilet paper.

-Sneak up behind someone and scare them by yelling, “Boo!”

-Sing a Halloween song for the group.

-Pretend you are a werewolf and howl at the moon.

-Pretend you are a wizard. Cast a spell on the person to your right.

-Pretend you are a black cat. Crawl around the circle, meowing loudly.

-Pretend you are a bat. Fly around the circle, screeching and flapping your wings.

-Tell your teacher she looks “Bootiful” today.

Birthday Olympics

This party is a simple idea but with tons of possibilities. It was a big hit with our 9-year-old birthday boy. It would be an awesome neighborhood party too. We had over 30 guests at this party with kids ages 2 -12 competing in the events. We also had eight adult helpers, each dressed as a judge from a different country. The adults played a huge part in making this party a great success. I am sure this party would still be great with a smaller group. There’s a lot of flexibility with this party plan.

Judge — The honorable judge from the nation of Mexico.

Invitation

Here was our invitation for the party. It was an official letter from the International Olympic Committee. Notice that the kids had to RSVP themselves and tell us what country they would represent at the party.

Olympic Uniforms

After I had a list of countries, I printed paper flags from each country. I made these simple pinnies from one square of felt, and some elastic ties. I wrote the name of each country with fabric paint.

Decorations

Other than the people themselves, my only decorations were strings of plastic flags purchased at a party store. I hung them around our church’s gym (the location of our party). This party would be great in a backyard or park. Too bad our birthday was in January!

Flags

As the guests arrived, we gave them each an 18” X 30” flag to decorate with fabric markers. Most of the kids looked at the picture on their chest and copied it. I sewed a line down one side of each flag creating a sleeve for a dowel to slide inside. I didn’t hem them, just left them with cut edges. You could use pinking shears if you wanted them to stay a little nicer.

Opening Ceremonies

My husband had all the kids line up. He announced their name and country and they walked around the gym waving their flags. We had an adult lead the line, and they followed. I played the Olympic Fanfare by John Williams. Then we began the competition!

Olympic Events

We made a big scoreboard with the list of events for the night. We listed all the events down the left side, then the names of the countries along the top. If the kids wanted to keep track of their scores, they could write on the board. If they didn’t care, they didn’t write anything down. It didn’t really matter to us– but some of the older boys really wanted to record every score. Here were the events we did. You’ll notice that some are big group games, and some are individual events. Most of the time we had two events going at once, so the kids didn’t have to wait.

Discus (Frisbee throw)

Javelin (swim noodle throw)

Shot Put (throw a foam ball)

Archery (Shoot rubber bands at targets)

Long Jump

Basketball (shooting from three different points on the court)

Rhythmic Gymnastics (Hula Hooping)

Cross Country Skiing (The goal here was to move your whole team across the gym on paper plates. Individuals had to pass paper plates up and down the line as they moved.)

60-yard dash

Marathon (run around course 4 times)

Hockey (with swim noodles cut in half for hockey sticks, and a foam ball for the puck)

Bowling (2-liter bottles as bowling pins)

Cycling (Tricycle Race)

Awards

Every participant stood on the medal stand. We had 3 crates which were all the same height. Each child received a sports drink and a medal. The medals were made from canning lids and ribbon (super easy). My husband announced each of their names/countries and had them stand on the crates for everyone to cheer. They each had their moment in the spotlight.

Cake

I made a big chocolate sheet cake with the Olympic rings made from M&Ms.