CARS movie theme, 5 year old My son loved the new Pixar movie CARS, so for his 5th birthday, we decided to have a CARS movie theme.  Since the movie was just released to the theatres this month, the DVD was not yet available and I had to rely on my memory to come up with the party ideas, so please forgive me if I make a few mistakes here and there.   The theme of the movie was teamwork and helping out so I tried to make all of the games revolve around this theme.  For the invitations, I used the store-bought CARS invites with a picture of Lightning McQueen and Mater, but I personalized them by including a work-order from Doc Hudson that said, Radiator Springs needs some sprucing up. Follow the map and be prepared to work!  Helping out can be fun, especially when there are prizes, cake and ice-cream after the jobs are done.  I know I can count on you to do a great job and have a good time.  Sincerely, Doc Hudson.  I used a font that looked like an old manual typewriter and wrote it to look like a letter from the court at Radiator Springs.  I also drew a map showing how to get to our house, using the proper street names, but changing the destination to Radiator Springs instead of our address (the parents have our real address on the other part of the invitation.)  When the children arrived, the first thing they see is a giant sign over our front gate which read Radiator Springs, 50 feet Ahead, with a big arrow. I made the posts out of heavy cardboard carpet tubes I obtained from the carpet store.  By simply attaching two long  tubes to one shorter cross tube using long screws, I constructed an arch from which I hung the sign.  (I save this arch for all my parties and simply change the what the sign says.) From this arch, I hung two rows of multicolor used car-lot type flags (Oriental trading company--OTC) all the way to our front door. To simulate a roadway, I rolled out a 100 foot black plastic tablecloth (OTC) and taped on little yellow dotted lines cut out from construction paper.   As the children arrived to the music from the CARS soundtrack, they each received a nametag which was a laminated paper license plate with his/her name on it and was then sent outside to explore Radiator Springs and get a paintjob (racing tattoo from OTC) at Ramone's House of Body Art. The road led through the house and into the backyard to our version of Radiator Springs, cardboard boxes painted to look like some of the buildings in the movie.  Fortunately I had three huge white boxes that I has saving, but refrigerator boxes work just as well.  Instead of painting the whole box, I prefer hot-gluing white paper obtained from the craft store to cover them first.   (You can use the backside of wrapping paper too.)  By wrapping them first, it is easier to draw details using a black Sharpie permanent ink marker.  I them use poster paint to paint them and then redraw the lines with the marker. It really doesn't take long and it is well worth it for the effect.  I pretty much just lined both sides of the main street with a cardboard facade representing the front of some buildings in Radiator Springs that I copied from a CARS coloring book--sort of like what you might find on a movie set.  It would have been cooler if the kids could play inside the buildings, but that would have required a lot more cardboard!  I also made a giant orange cone out of cardboard for the hotel and put up our dome tent at the end of the street to simulate Filmore's dome house.  I just threw a white sheet over the top and taped a few peace signs, flowers, and other hippe symbols made from construction paper onto it.  They had fun playing in the tent. Next to the tent was an ice chest with a sign saying Organic Fuel, Help Yourself with drinks inside. I had a snack table with Oreo cookies to look like wheels with an M&m hubcap.  I also had cheese cut-out in car shapes, crackers and a fruit/veggie tray.   Ramone's House of Body Art was constructed out of a card table. I simply taped the white paper around three sides of the base and painted it to look like a building .  I had a family member sitting at the table putting tattoos on the kids.  Adding cardboard cactuses, more car-lot flags and balloons filled in the dead space and tied everything together.  Down the middle of the main street, I had created the effect of broken asphalt by gluing the black tablecloth to a long piece of cardboard and then cutting it into about a bunch of jagged pieces which were tossed about randomly.  Since I had a tree in just the right location, I hung a stoplight  and a sign Welcome to Radiator Springs in the style of the movie. For the games, we called everyone inside to sit down.  I had decorated the living room to look like a garage. Since my father restores old cars, this was easy. I just borrowed some old car parts and tools to decorate.  I made some large cut outs of Lightening McQueen and Doc Hudson by taking images from a coloring book and enlarging them with my craft master projector (available at Hearthsong.com) and hung them on the wall.  I also made lots of road signs (route 66) and license plates to hang on the wall.  Since AAA gives out free maps to members, I obtained some California, Arizona and New Mexico maps to hang on the walls.  When I had the children's attention, I explained that Doc Hudson had a lot of work for us to do and asked them if they were ready to help out to make Radiator Springs shine. Since I wanted to save the prizes for the treat bags at the end, I didn't give prizes for the games, but explained that after all four of Doc Hudson's jobs are finished, we get to eat cake and ice-cream. They got really excited as we went outside for the first game---FIX THE ROAD. I gathered up the blacktop pieces of the main street (described earlier) and passed them out to the children, explaining that it is going to take teamwork to get this road fixed.  With a few adjustment, they assembled the new road. For our second game, STACK THE TIRES, I explained that Luigi needed lots of help getting his Tire shop in order.  I divided the children into two teams and passed out blow-up inner tubes that I found on sale before the party. (If you have this party in an off season, you could make tires out of cardboard and modify the game to a tire toss, like a ring toss) The object was to roll the tire around the obstacle cones and stack the tires onto the post that was stuck into the ground at the end of the course.  The third game was FIND MATER HOOD.  This was really a treasure hunt type game.  We have a lot of greenery in our yard, so I hid a great big cardboard hood in the bushes.  I also hid other car parts to make it more interesting.  I've found that small children enjoy parties more when they travel about as a group as opposed to taking turns and the games also move faster.  After they found Mater's hood, I said Wow, Mater is going to be so happy. Gee, speaking of Mater reminds me of something fun. . . .it's not on Doc Hudson's list, but would you like to go tractor tipping? Of course the kids thought that that would be great, so our next game was TRACTOR TIPPIN. For this game, we had to go inside to my son's room because you can only go tractor tippin when you sneak up on them at night.  To simulate nighttime, I put cardboard over my son's windows to block out the light and then turned on a 4 foot black light bulb from Home Depot. (I try to use this for all our parties.) I drew a tractor out of white paper glued onto cardboard, but did not paint it because white paper glows in black light.  I then hung the tractor on the wall with a nail through the center.  By attaching fishing line to the tractor near the top, I was able to tip the tractor by pulling the line so that he swivels on the nail.  As long as I held the wire, the tractor would tip.   I also drew a moon and a bunch of stars out of white paper and hung them on the walls. I covered everything else in his room with dark non-glowing sheets so you didn't see any of his toys.  I brought all the children into the room and told them to yell BOO as loud as they could, but be careful not to wake up Frank.  I let them try a few times before I tipped the tractor. They thought it was hilarious. When I let the tractor down, I asked if they would like to try again.  Of course, they said YES, but this time, after they yelled BOO and the tractore tipped, they also heard a rumbling growl coming from inside the bunk bed.  Since the bed was covered with a sheet, they didn't know it was just my husband and they all ran because they thought they woke up Frank. It was not too scary, so they all laughed as we ran outside for the last game, LINK TO THE INTERSTATE. I said, Wow, Radiator Springs looks great. All it needs is tourists and our job is done.  Let's follow the map, find the interstate and put up the sign to lead them to Radiator Springs.  I followed clues that led us from place to place in our backyard and finally ended at our side gate with a sign that said This Way to the Interstate. When we opened the side gate, the kids were so excited to find a fleet of tourists waiting to come to Radiator Springs.  These were really 18inch inflatable race cars (OTC).  I put up the sign that read This way to Radiator Springs and told each child to grab a car and head for the cake table because their work is complete.  The cake table was already set with character party wear.  I placed a small plastic trophy (OTC) at each seat which was filled with gummy race cars from the candy store.  There was also a can of Treetop Apple Juice that I had relabeled with a large sticker to read Dinoco with a Dinoco logo. I made two 13x9 in. cakes. One cake was frosted white with graham crackers crushed all over it to look like sand.  Down the middle on a diagonal was a road of black frosting with a die-cast Lightning McQueen and Sally ($3.00/ea. at Walmart). I placed a plastic brown mountain from my son's dinosaur collection on the corner, but you could use a piece of cake and frost it instead.  I made little road signs, one read Route 66, the other Read Welcome to Radiator Springs.  The other cake was frosted white with a black road going on a diagonal too, but this one had a die-cast Lightning McQueen,  Chick, and King in a race to a finish line. I made green coconut grass and lined the edged with little triangular racing flags attached to a string of dental floss and hot glued onto toothpicks to look like a string of black and white racing flags strung onto a fence. After singing, I had someone pass out ice-cream bars while I cut the cake.   When it looked like everyone was about  done eating, I had one more surprise. I called to them to come out front quickly because Mator's helicopter was arriving. I had them all stand behind a line of tape under the eaves of our house and look out in the distance.  Unbeknownst to the kids, my husband was on the roof behind them getting ready to throw a helicopter shaped pinata off the roof. At my signal and with the kids safely out of the way, the helicopter landed.  Inside, were gift bags labeled with each kids name.  Each bag contained goodies from OTC, (CARS oil squirt can, CARS Pez dispenser, CARS notepad, a Hotwheel, and a candy filled Hot Wheel.) After passing these out, we headed inside for present time followed by playtime. The kids went home with their gift bag, inflatable car and trophy.  It was a terrific party. I sent out standard CARS thank-you notes with a  sheet of CARS stickers inside. It took a lot of work, but was well worth it.