My son loves elephants and it was perfect when Horton Hears a Who became popular so for his birthday he wanted a Horton Hears a Who party. INVITATION:
I made the invitations using Microsoft Publisher and Horton clipart that I copied from certain birthday websites. I used the first paragraph of the Horton Hears a Who book and came up with this for the front of the invitation On the 27th of September, in the Jungle of Nool, In the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool...He was splashing...enjoying the jungle's great joys When Horton the elephant heard a small noise Happy 4th Birthday it said over and over...And to who Horton replied as he looked at a clover...Why ________, he's getting so big...Please join us at three for his birthday shindig...O.K. said Horton who should I call? Why his mother of course, she won't mind at all Horton dialed the number, he was so excited To join _______ as he knew that he would be delighted! Inside I put Please join Horton as he celebrates _____4th Birthday and listed where the party was being held etc. DECORATIONS: I used white/blue/orange balloons throughout the house and by my sons chair to eat. I also purchased Horton Hears a Who plates, napkins and table cloths. We placed Horton stuffed animals on the kids table and instead of using confetti, I used tiny craft eye balls. The kids thought it was funny that the yes were watching them eat. ACTIVITIES/GAMES: When the kids arrived, they became elephants. We measured their heads and made head bands with elephant ears hanging down (using blue card stock paper and stapling them together). They also received a Horton tattoo. Then all the kids sat down while my sister-in-law read them the Horton Hears a Who book (since some of the kids didn't know the story). After the story was game time. Since elephants love peanuts we took Nutter Butter cookies and made a hole in one end and tied a string to it. We tied the other end on an extended curtain rod. Two adults held the ends of the curtain rod while the kids tried to eat the cookies only using their mouth with their hands behind their backs. It was hilarious! For the next game, I found pink clover flowers at Wal-Mart that looked exactly like the clovers in the book/movie. We played a relay game Keep the speck on the clover. We divided the kids into two teams, we placed a cotton ball on the clovers and the kids raced back and forth to see who could keep the speck on the clover. For the last game we used a parachute and two stuffed animal Hortons. We made Horton fly and bounce and had the kids run under the parachute. They loved it! During the party we also had the Horton Hears A Who movie playing for added entertainment. PARTY SNACKS: Since the party was from 3-5 we just had snack type food. Peanuts of course, along with Nutter Butter cookies, cheese puffs, veggie tray with dip, snack mix (goldfish, pretzels, candy corn and marshmallows), juice boxes and cupcakes. I couldn't find a cake anywhere pertaining to this theme so I made cupcakes. I added blue food coloring to a white cake mix so the cupcake would be blue inside and to decorate, I used white frosting and found blue decorating spray (looks like spray paint) and put a blue ediable sugar elephant on each of the kids cupcakes. FAVORS: I couldn't believe it when I found great Horton items in Target's dollar section. Horton tote bags, sticky notepads, pencils, erasers and cups. I added gray tissue paper and they turned out great. Everyone had a great time and it's a party that my son will have memories for, for a long time.
