Wizard of Oz - 5 year old party This was absolutely the best party I have planned and hosted! We had a blast!
The party was a costume party and it invited kids to come dressed as their favorite Oz character or a munchkin. I dressed as Glenda using a lot of my daughters dress up jewelry and my husband wore a tux and was the Oz. My daughter was Dorothy and worn a blue gingham dress we already had and I bought red "Dorothy shoes" from Target. For the invitation: I drew a brick road onto a piece a paper then copied the image onto yellow cardstock paper. I printed the words on a shimmery vellum which I then overlayed ontop of the yellow paper and attached the two pieces with two hole punch and a ribbon. For room decorations:I used yellow plastic tablecloth roll and drew a yellow brick road design onto it with a big sharpie. I layed this down the sidewalk leading up to the door to where the party was. In the doorway I hung a green metallic steamer door hanger that the kids had to walk through. Also, under one of the doors at the entrance I put a pair of "Dorothy shoes" with some stuffed black stockings coming out from under the door so symbolize the house landing on the witch. Inside the room I covered all tables in green plastic. On the main table I used papergoods with the Oz theme purchased from either partypro.com or birthday express.com. Both companies also sell a paper table centerpiece that I purchased and elevated it on the table by making a stand for it out of florist green foam covered with green tissue. I used lots of green balloons to decorate too. I had the Wizard of Oz CD playing in the background too. When the children arrived we had 2 crafts for them to do: The first craft was shrinky dinks which both the kids and moms thought was very cool. I cut shrinky dink paper into squares about 4 or 5" square. With colored pencils they wrote on the square and drew pictures. I got a mom to help me to bake them while the party was going on. They bake on a cookie sheet for 2 or 3 minutes and shrink down. This mom attached a small magnet to the back when they were done to make a refrigerator magnet of the kids art. The other craft the kids made fairy wands. I bought white shimmery cardstock paper which I cut into stars. I got small dowels and cut into 1 foot long pieces. I spraypainted them white and glued one star to each dowel making a wand. The kids decorated them by painting on clear glue that already had stars and small confetti in the glue. Then they sprinkled on additional stars and tied on a ribbon too. For games: For the first game, I divided the group in half - including all siblings and moms at the party. One group I gave 3 rolls of tin foil, a funnel and masking tape and they had to make a volunteer helper into the tin man using the supplies. The other group I gave old clothes, a rope, bandanas, a hat and some straw and masking tape and they had to dress their volunteer as the scarecrow. All ages participated in this game. When it was done, I had the kids line up and gave them all 1" size red sticker hearts. They were each blindfolded and we did a "pin the heart on the tinman" games. The volunteer who was dressed as the tinman let us stick the stickers on him. Next I played a game using skittles. I let the kids lick them and put them on their nose and try to walk around. The kids actually enjoyed this and laughed a lot as they bumped into one another. Next was the cake and food: I preassembled birthday plates for the kids with a cupcake, a Jell-O rainbow cup and some wands. The Jell-O rainbow cup I made by using disposable clear cups and layering 5 or 6 colors of Jell-O. I took a while to make these but the kids loved them the most. Layer 1 color in the cup then let it hardened, then add the next layer, etc. The wands I also made by using the small pretzel sticks and dipping half the stick in melted white chocolate then rolling it in pink or green sprinkles. I also had a small birthday cake so we brought it out to sing with and then brought each kid their plate. For the drink I mixed ginger ale and white grape juice and added a green ice cube that I had made ahead of time. The drink turned green and the kids really loved this. We opened presents next and then finally we had a piņata. I made the piņata with my family. It was a hot air balloon. We used paper mache to cover a big balloon and then attached a basket with yarn. It was decorated with tissue paper. There's lots of websites on piņata making to assist you in doing this. I filled it with candy that I put into small baggies so that each kid got one bag. I did the piņata last in the party because the kids always want to eat their candy and you've lost their attention at this point. I handed out party favor bags: a shimmery bag with a large size swirl lollipop, poprocks candy, a few pieces of gum or other candy, small Dorothy figurine, 2 or 3 Wizard of Oz trading cards. They also picked up their wands and the shriky dinks too. For the siblings that came to the party I also gave them a large size swirl lollipop. I had unwrapped these lollipops and rewrapped them in shimmmery cellophane and tied with ribbons and they looked really pretty. Because it's hard to find Wizard of Oz stuff right now, I purchased all these things on ebay.com at very reasonable prices: Dorothy figurines, wizard of oz confetti, wizard of oz trading cards, WOZ music CD, WOZ video, a lion costume for my other child, and the shrinky dink supplies. I actually did most of the shopping for this party online using ebay.com, birthdayexpress.com and partypro.com. The party lasted 2 hours. I had 16 kids along with about 5 additional siblings. I spent about $150 to $175 on the party and my kids are going to use the costumes again for Halloween!
