What do you do for your little boy who LOVES the movie Jungle Book? Throw him a Jungle birthday party, of course! :)
I have been thinking about his upcoming 4th {agh! 4!} birthday party. I remembered this one and thought I'd share.
I did a LOT of searching the web for ideas and thinking. This is what I came up with:
THE INVITES:
"Have you herd? The King of the Jungle is turning 2!"
"So, swing on over to XXXX on XXXX. We'll have snacks, cake, and lots of monkey business!"
DECORATIONS:
I took 2 white poster boards. Drew the spiral for Kaa on one. And the head on another. Used my tempara paint to paint him. He hung by the jungle tree. See it in the back of the picture below? You can get Jungle leaves butcher paper at Hobby Lobby {used my 40% off coupon}. And then I had some old brown packing paper I used to wrap around the pole for the trunk. And Kaa was slithering out of the tree.
Used Green streamers for the vines.
It was cheaper just to buy solid color orange and white tablecloths from Walmart for $1 and used a permanent marker to make the tiger and zebra strips on the side.
THE GAMES/ACTIVITIES:
When, the kiddos first got there, I had them color their vest. These are just paper sacks that I got for free at Safeway. You just go to Customer Service and ask for them. If they are nice, they will give them to you. Or they might make you pay like a $1 or something. We cut out the necks and arm holes. This is PERFECT to do at the beginning! Because as you know, kids will show up late. If they didn't color it- no big deal. Just a good activity to have the kids do to keep them busy while you wait for everyone to arrive.
SAFARI:
Kids getting ready to go on a Safari! This was so much fun, the kids LOVED it!
I gave them all hats, binoculars, and map to go with their vest.
You will need:
{just click to download the one I made}
I had hid these inflatable jungle animals around the backyard.
The kids had to go find them. When they found the animal they would put a sticker down. For example, looking below, my son had found the giraffe. So, he put the giraffe sicker on his map. I had the giraffe stickers in a Ziploc bag taped to the animal for the kids to take one out.
ELEPHANT MARCH:
I made these elephant trunks using dixie cups {tutorial here} and had the kids march in a circle on a circle I had drawn with sidewalk chalk. I had taped down a brown piece of paper on the circle somewhere as the "mud". They would march as the music played {I used a download of the Elephant march song in the movie Jungle Book}. Then, when the music would stop, whatever "elephant" was stuck in the mud when the music ended got to come over and get an animal sucker to go in their treat favor box.
SOAK SHERE KHAN:
I drew and laminated Shere Khan. Taped him to a pole in the backyard. Filled up water balloons and let the kids throw them at him. They loved it!!
PARACHUTE:
I own one of these from teaching. But, you can buy one here. I put the inflatable jungle animals I bought for the safari in the middle of the parachute. The kids had fun shaking it and making the tiger, zebra, or whatever move around. Sometimes I could get them to launch the monkey too. Lots of giggles!
THE CAKE:
Used the Wilton Elephant Cake Pan
Bought it at JoAnns using a 50% off coupon.
This party was so much fun!! It's funny, whenever we go to one of our friends house, her son will say "Who is Ashley again?" And she will say "Remember the Jungle Party?" He will smile and say "Oh yeah, that was fun!" That always makes me smile when I know my son, family, and friends had a great time!