I planned my son's 4th birthday party around the theme of Space. I was a preschool teacher so I used my knowledge and experience to make the party's activities run smoothly into each other. My first priority was to allow all the children to win each game by having open-ended games without winners.   As children and parents arrived, I directed them to an art activity at the kitchen table or stomp rocket in the play room.  The art activity was to color and decorate a paper bag for the pinata favors.  (This way the favor bags could be saved until the end. The favor bags had aliens, moon balls and glow stars.)  I wrote each child's names on the bags ahead of time so they didn't have to do the art activity, which many chose not to. They still had their own bag for the pinata game.    The children first played "land the rocket on a planet" using a poster I bought at a teacher's store. I made the rockets from sticky back foam so all we had to do was peel the backs. Children were given a choice to be blindfolded or not and the same with getting spun around three times.  After they landed on the moon, they received their astronaut badge.  Right next to the "land the rocket game" was a child's picnic table where the kids put rocket stickers on cut out sticky back Mylar rockets that I put each of their names on, such as "astronaut Michael".   When the first game and prize was completed I led a movement exercise where we pretended to put on space suits, climb into a rocket and blast off to the moon.  The 4 year olds were completely engaged in this activity. Once we landed on the moon and jumped into space we traveled in zero gravity to my living room where the children hunted for moon rocks.  I wrapped aluminum foil around golf balls and placed them all over the room, most were in plain view.  The children piled them in a big bucket and when all had been collected they received a glitter filled necklace to wear along with the badge.  After lunch and a 3D planet cake I made, complete with plastic rockets and astronauts, the children broke a rocket pinata.    To fill some down times I organized a marching band using my son's musical instruments and they enjoyed marching noisily all over the house.  They also played "hot moon rock" (same as hot potato except everytime one child sits in the middle the other gets out so there isn't a winner at the end and the one in the middle is there only briefly).  The children also danced to "rock and roll" which allowed for all the party excitement to be vented.