Once we decided on the Pajama Party theme for out daughter's 6th Birthday party, we let her select 10 girls to invite. This was a Friday night party but not a sleepover since they were a
little young for that. INVITATIONS:
I took a picture of my daughter in her pajamas, robe, and slippers sitting on her bed. I made the invitations on the computer using the picture as the front and asked the girls to wear their pajamas and bring their slippers to the party. ACTIVITY: Ahead of time I had made copies of pages from a coloring book with sleepover and birthday party pictures in it and put a book together for each girl. We had baskets of crayons, stamps and markers in the dining room so they could hang out there and color while others arrived. PROJECT: Prior to the party I designed a picture frame by folding 5x14 inch strips of poster board into a 5x7 A-frame (so it would stand up, which also required stapling a small strip to the inside). I cut out paper pillows and pasted them to the top front to make a photo frame of the girls as if they were sleeping. As they were coloring I gave them each a quilt designed cutout (I made this by photocopying my own drawing of a quilt). They could color and design their quilt while I took them aside one at a time to photo them (I used an instant camera) lying on a white pillow. When they whet to play the first game, we assembled the frames by pasting their photos on the pillow, their quilts below them, and a teddy bear cutout next to them. GAMES: The girls played 5 games. 1) Pass the Slippers they sat in a circle and passed slippers until the music stopped then the girl holding the slippers was out (and got to pick from the gift bag). The last girl left won the slippers (they were new)! 2) Toss the Bed Bug I used a new beanie bug and some small bags filled w/ beans. They took turns tossing them into the bed, which was a baby doll crib. The girl who got the most in got to keep the new beanie bug. 3) Walking on Clouds I cut 4 cloud shapes from poster board (2 per sheet). The girls were in two teams, each with two clouds. One at a time they had to walk on the clouds and alternate them as they went across the room and back to their team to switch off to the next girl. 4) Pin-the-Bear-in-the-Bed - My intentions were to draw a bed on poster board and use cutout teddy bears, but we opted for the Donkey in the interest of prep time! 5) Our last game was musical pillows. As the girls were out in the game, they could go into the kitchen for a snack. CAKE: My daughter then got to open gifts then we did the cake which was sky blue and decorated with clouds, stars, and a moon. WIND DOWN: The girls then settled into the family room to relax on pillows and watch Mary Kate and Ashley's Sleepover Party video (a nice 30 minutes to wind down and let the parents come for pickup).