5 Year old Butterfly Party This is such a fun party for 5 year olds and there is so much out there.  I hope I am able to share some new ideas that we tried and that worked. Invitations...my daughter drew a butterfly with a black permanent marker and colored the butterfly with bright highlighters on white card stock.  I used colorful paper as borders for the invitation (very bright and pretty). On the inside I used a combination of ideas from this website for the description of the party.  "Flutter by to Kaitlyn's 5th Birthday Party"  Caterpillar on by (the date), Butterflies to arrive (the time) The Pressley's Cocoon is at (the address) RSVP to the "Mom-arch" (phone number). When the girls arrived to the party, they decorated their own butterfly wings made from bright pink poster board (I used yarn to tie around their neck for the wings to stay in place).  They decorated their wings with glitter glue, markers, and butterfly stickers.  The girls also got antennae made from thin plastic headbands, glittery pipe cleaners, and glittery pom-pom balls (all found at Target). They looked so cute all decorated as butterflies. We played two games...the first the girls had to be a butterfly scientist. I read them the Hungry Caterpillar book and we talked about the four stages of the butterfly (egg, caterpillar, cocoon, and butterfly). I then gave them a colored card with the four stages of the butterfly on the card.  Each card was a different color and the four stages were labeled with pictures(since many of the girls are beginning readers).For example, The egg (with a black bean glued next to the word), caterpillar (corkscrew pasta), cocoon (cotton ball), and butterfly (buttefly shaped pasta).  Each girl had to be a scientist and look for these four stages of the butterfly in our backyard. They had to look for their color of these stages. So for example, if one girl had an orange card, she had to look for an orange egg (a Easter egg with a butterfly toy in it), an orange caterpillar (cut out of orange construction paper and taped to a butterfly toy), an orange cocoon (made from a toilet tube with orange construction paper around it with a butterfly toy in side), and an orange butterfly (cut out of orange construction paper and attached to yet another butterfly toy).  I got all the butterfly toys from Oriental Trading co. A huge selection and very cheap! We had about 11 girls, so there were 11 different colors that each girl received and had to look for the four things.  They collected their findings in a gift bag (I used colorful tissue paper to make into a butterfly on the outside of the bag and twisted the pipe cleaner to make the body and antennae around the tissue paper and glued on the bag).  Very cute and colorful. The girls loved being butterfly scientists and using their cards to help them find the four stages of the butterfly.  The other butterfly game we played was pretending we were butterflies (using our wings and antennae) to look for nectar (candy) hidden in our front yard. Some of the candies had plastic butterflies already on the candy.  When the girls found one of those candies, they would show me their butterfly and I would give them a butterfly toy to put with their growing collection of butterfly things.The girls had fun finding their "nectar" and munching on some as they were looking. My daughter did not want cake, but butterfly cupcakes (which we make every year and take to school on their birthdays).  The cupcakes are simple...white frosting, orange candy slices (cut in half for the wings), a gummy worm (cut in half for the body), red rope licorice (for the anntennae), and skittles for decoration on the wings.  This is a yummy treat. I did make the butterfly ice creams with the neopolitan ice cream using my butterfly cookie cutter (quite messy to make, but definitely a huge hit with the girls).  It was a fun birthday and every girl had fun and enjoyed learning and discovering more about butterflies.