Jungle Birthday: It took me 1 1/2 months to plan this party for my 4 year old.   I had a total of 12 children between 4 and 9 (the 9year was my helper.)The birthday boy greeted his guests as he was dressed up in a jungle outfit along with a safari hat and a pair of binoculars around his neck.  I made the invitations in color using clip art off my computer. The party  was from 1-3:30.  I also printed different jungle animals and palm trees in color.  I used the palm tree leaves to decorate the door ways and added monkeys, tucan birds and parrots around it.  I also printed and taped jungle trees on the walls and in the jungle room (this is where we had pizza, cake & ice cream). I made a mobile to hang from the ceiling and that had monkeys and tucan birds. I placed jungle stuffed animals throughout the house to give it a greater feel of the jungle. Then I placed printed jungle animals throughout the house in house plants on ledges, etc. and created a sheet with the same animals on them.  I handed these out along with binoculars and they had to go on an animal hunt for these jungle animals, they searched up high and then low and matched them to their sheet. The kids really enjoyed this, great way to enhance their matching skills. We made a circle and we read a quick jungle pop-up book and talked about everyone's favorite jungle animal and the diffent sounds each of them make. Then this transitioned into the next game which was "guess which animal is sitting on your head"?  I had foam material visors that I attached paper jungle animals to and each child got a chance to wear one and with the help of the others (without saying the animals name of course)he/she had to guess which animal was sitting on his/her head.  It was lots of fun acting out the animals!  Another game I created was "time to feed the monkey". I printed a monkey hanging from a branch on 11 x 14 paper and then printed peeled bananas and wrote each of their names on them. They had to pin the bananas on the monkey's mouth while they were blind folded.  They played this game twice!  Then in my house we can not end a party without a pinata, this one was a Tiger filled mostly with small toys and the birthday boys favorite candy. The cake -I decorated with a jungle theme and I used jungle-like trees and topped with jungle animals. With a cake decorating kit I created leaves and grass out of green frosting and some brown logs. Even the grown-ups liked the cake!  For the goodie bags-I cut and pasted animal printouts on both sides of brown paper lunch bags. Great project for kids to help with on a rainy day.  Then I filled with related theme favors and as a special treat I added animal cracker vs. candy.  It was a great time planning it and then having it.  My son later thanked me for such a great party!!  Best of all it kept the cost of the party pretty low!