Dora the Explorer Party  For my daughter's 4th birthday party she decided she wanted a dora the explorer party.  I decided we would do a map adventure. I drew out the map of where we needed to go, and photocopied it (enough for each child).  This is what the kids colored while we were waiting for all of the kids to show up.  I also had downloaded a bunch of "dora" songs and burnt them onto a cd and played that throughout the entire party.  After everyone had arrived, we got ready for our adventure. I handed out backpacks - one to each child, and they all put their map in the map holder.  My daughters and i made the backpacks (a couple a day) out of fun foam from the dollar store(4/$1). We made them by taking 2 sheets of purple and hole punching all around 3 edges and then my girls (4yrs & 5yrs) "sewed" them by stringing purple yarn through.  We then glued eyes (white foam), mouth (red foam), and eyebrows (yellow foam) on. I took a coloring page from the internet and blew it up enough to get the right size of face for the backpacks. We stapled purple fun foam strips on the back for straps, and a smaller purple foam strip into a loop on the side for the map holder.  This was a great project for me to do with my kids before the actual party and the kids loved them because you could actually wear them.  I had set up the basement of our house for the party. I told the kids that swiper had swiped a big surprise that Boots had gotten ready for the party, and we needed to find it. So we all looked at our map and it said dora's house was the first place we needed to go. On the doorway at the bottom of the stairs I made a streamer door in 2 different colors of green, by alternating the colors and making the streamers long enough to just about touch the floor. (I did this all over the basement to seperate the different areas we needed to go to so that none of the kids would run ahead to the next stop. It made it look very jungely. We had hung homemade palm trees and little bushes all around the area where dora's house was. I did a streamer ceiling with balloons hanging from the ceiling as well. For dora's actual house I took my kids pop-up tent and hung dora's picture on the front of it with a message. It said that a big gust of wind had come and blown a special present she had made for the birthday girl all over and she needed our help to find it. Before the party i had made a poster with a picture of dora and the gang and my daughter's picture that said happy birthday and cut it up like a puzzle. The kids looked all around to find the puzzle pieces and then we put it together.  Another message taped up by dora said that the kids should keep their eyes out for magic sticks because Boots had been by earlier looking for some. Our next stop was alligator pond - I had bought 2 big blue plastic table cloths (dollar store -$1 each) and placed them on the floor. We had made paper stepping stones out of grey construction paper and placed them on the "pond" so that there was a path from one side to the other. I had scattered glow (magic) sticks all throughout the water and also chocolate dollar coins. I had made alligators by cutting the shape of an alligator head out of green construction paper and then gluing eyes on top (kind of like a pop out card) so that it looked like the whole body was under water and the eyes were the only part sticking up out of the water and you could just see the heads. Some of the kids were a little timid around them. (I made their eyebrows frown so they looked mad). Each child hopped from stone to stone collecting sticks and coins and putting them in their backpacks. Our last stop on the adventure was rainbow cave.  (the small closet underneath the stairs) When we got there, there was a sign with a picture of boots saying we made it but to get to the surprise waiting we had to pop all of the balloons.  The little closet was filled with balloons. So the kids started pulling out balloons and bouncing on them - this was hilarious!! Inside each balloon was a small prize - little figurines, trinkets and magnets (the kind you buy at the dollar store 4/$1). Then they all pulled out thier magic sticks and started cracking them so they could see, and went into the cave.  At the farthest corner were bags all the colors of the rainbow, and inside was a color coordinating candy, (red bag-licorice, purple-kool Aid jammers, orange-suckers, etc) We handed out all the candy and put it in the backpacks.  Then went upstairs to eat.  The cake was of boots.  Our local grocery store made it from a picture I had brought in. The kids then settled in to watch dora cartoons, until it was hometime. All of the parents were very impressed with the goody bag backpack idea, and it was a great craft to keep my kids busy.  We plan to make more with a different theme for my other daughter's birthday. Hope this was helpful!