Quick Lil' Buggers
My two big boys had a friend sleep over this past weekend. This particular friend has been to every one of their birthday parties I think since my now 7 year old was three. He knows I like parties, he knows my boys like parties, and just about every time he has slept over he's asked to play some sort of game. This time he didn't asked to play a game though. He asked to have a party.
It was close to bedtime so I went over the Basic Games with them and told them to think of some ideas and that after breakfast the next morning we would sit down and plan, make the games, and then have the "party". But before the griddle was even warm for pancakes, our guest had decided on a theme (bugs) and already made a game. How about that?
*If you're planning a party remember to involve your child in the planning. You will be amazed at what they can come up with. Discuss the Basic Games with them and see what they think of. I plan to do a nice long post about bug parties in the future but for now here is a short list of the 4 games we played...all thought up by the three boys.*
Bug Hunt -
We called the game that our guest came up with Bug Hunt. He buried my youngest son's entire plastic bug collection in a box of gravel/colored macaroni.
(In case you're curious, I have a box of gravel mixed with colored macaroni because my little one decided to pour our colored macaroni for crafts into the gravel his daddy was drying off after rinsing for the fish tank. I have since found it useful so I decided to keep it.)
He decided that all bugs except for the flies were worth 5 points, the flies worth 10, and the "really big huge" fly was worth 20.
They were all given 30 seconds to find as many bugs as they could.
Musical Spiders - We made Black Widow spiders using paper plates. I was in charge of drawing red hourglass shapes on each paper plate and then coloring around it black. My middles son drew heads for the spiders and then I cut them out and glued them on. Then I cut paper strips for legs. The legs were glued on by our guest.
We put the spiders on the floor and played Musical Spiders just like Musical Chairs.
Spider Walk - For this game we just added numbers onto the hourglass shape of each spider. This was played like a cake walk. They walked from spider to spider until the music was turned off. Then I drew a number and whoever was on that number won a prize. Both of the spider games were thought of by my middle son. "We can do like we did (The Little Mermaid) shell games but with spiders instead of shells!"
Pin the Tail on the Scorpion. - I did make this one entirely by myself but it was the idea of our guest. He even dug a toy scorpion out of the bug hunt game for me to look at. I just drew the scorpion, traced the end of his tail and cut one out for each boy.
Throw the Bee in the Hive - Our guest suggested we "throw some bugs in some holes". My oldest son immediately yelled out "Bees! Throw bees in a hive!" So that's what we did. Our guest drew a bee hive. I glued it to the front of a box and they took turns throwing two bees into the hive. We had three spots to throw from worth 5, 10, and 20 points.
This whole little party was planned, made, and played out in the span of maybe three hours so we had no food and therefore no decorated place settings. We did have prizes though. Inspired by my son's teacher last year I started a treasure chest with my boys last year. I highly reccommend it. Not only is it a great reward system, it is wonderful to have on hand for impromptu parties. All my prizes were purchased from a thrift store for 10 cents each.
Since this post is all about the boys' amazing party planning skills I decided to ask my oldest how to end this post...
"Remember to BEE good". ("and capitalize the bee!")
It was close to bedtime so I went over the Basic Games with them and told them to think of some ideas and that after breakfast the next morning we would sit down and plan, make the games, and then have the "party". But before the griddle was even warm for pancakes, our guest had decided on a theme (bugs) and already made a game. How about that?
*If you're planning a party remember to involve your child in the planning. You will be amazed at what they can come up with. Discuss the Basic Games with them and see what they think of. I plan to do a nice long post about bug parties in the future but for now here is a short list of the 4 games we played...all thought up by the three boys.*
Bug Hunt -
We called the game that our guest came up with Bug Hunt. He buried my youngest son's entire plastic bug collection in a box of gravel/colored macaroni.
(In case you're curious, I have a box of gravel mixed with colored macaroni because my little one decided to pour our colored macaroni for crafts into the gravel his daddy was drying off after rinsing for the fish tank. I have since found it useful so I decided to keep it.)
He decided that all bugs except for the flies were worth 5 points, the flies worth 10, and the "really big huge" fly was worth 20.
They were all given 30 seconds to find as many bugs as they could.
Musical Spiders - We made Black Widow spiders using paper plates. I was in charge of drawing red hourglass shapes on each paper plate and then coloring around it black. My middles son drew heads for the spiders and then I cut them out and glued them on. Then I cut paper strips for legs. The legs were glued on by our guest.
We put the spiders on the floor and played Musical Spiders just like Musical Chairs.
Spider Walk - For this game we just added numbers onto the hourglass shape of each spider. This was played like a cake walk. They walked from spider to spider until the music was turned off. Then I drew a number and whoever was on that number won a prize. Both of the spider games were thought of by my middle son. "We can do like we did (The Little Mermaid) shell games but with spiders instead of shells!"
Pin the Tail on the Scorpion. - I did make this one entirely by myself but it was the idea of our guest. He even dug a toy scorpion out of the bug hunt game for me to look at. I just drew the scorpion, traced the end of his tail and cut one out for each boy.
Throw the Bee in the Hive - Our guest suggested we "throw some bugs in some holes". My oldest son immediately yelled out "Bees! Throw bees in a hive!" So that's what we did. Our guest drew a bee hive. I glued it to the front of a box and they took turns throwing two bees into the hive. We had three spots to throw from worth 5, 10, and 20 points.
This whole little party was planned, made, and played out in the span of maybe three hours so we had no food and therefore no decorated place settings. We did have prizes though. Inspired by my son's teacher last year I started a treasure chest with my boys last year. I highly reccommend it. Not only is it a great reward system, it is wonderful to have on hand for impromptu parties. All my prizes were purchased from a thrift store for 10 cents each.
Since this post is all about the boys' amazing party planning skills I decided to ask my oldest how to end this post...
"Remember to BEE good". ("and capitalize the bee!")
1 comments:
Love it!
Amy
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