For my daughter's Dora the Explorer (hereafter referred to as: DtE) Birthday party, I had a problem. Some of the kiddos coming were too young for organized games, but I didn't want to just sit around and eat, so I decided to have the kiddos follow "The Map." It turned out to be great fun!
We started in the front yard in a tent, which that alone all the attendees LOVED. I told them that Swiper had swiped the birthday cake and they had to find it. "Who do we ask for help when we don't know which way to go?" The map!!
I drew the map myself...now you know why I went into physical education instead of art education. I took my inspiration from the story Dora Climbs Star Mountain (no I don't get any money from amazon.com...but wouldn't it be lovely if I did?).
Now you really have to explain everything like the map to the kiddos you know. "Dora (or insert birthday child's name) needs your help to find the birthday cake...well I know where it is! To find the cake you need to follow the 15 stars, go through the gate, past the swing-set and through the door and that's how you get to the cake. Now you tell Dora: stars, gate, swing-set, door (repeat 4-5 times just like the map on TV or until you feel silly)." Follow this of course with "Where do we go first....right, the stars!"
First, we followed the 15 stars for which I chose sidewalk chalk on cement as my medium.
This led us to the gate.
We said "open" but decided it must speak Spanish, so we tried "abre." This time it opened up.
We did this by my husband hiding behind the fence. He pushed it open when we said "abre" and then stood there nonchalantly when we came through.
I just drew the pieces of the face on printer paper and taped it with clear packing tape. The tape didn't show up as much to the naked eye as it does in the photo.
When we got through the gate, the swing-set was nowhere in sight, but there was Tico with his car! (I forgot to take a picture of this until after the party, unfortunately Tico's tail took one for the team, but it was there once!)
I can't help you with the car set. Grandpa and Grandma gave it to her for her birthday so I just incorporated it. You could us a wagon or just skip Tico's car completely if you want.
After we all took a ride on the car (and by "we" I mean, just the kiddos), we saw the swing-set! On it was a pull-string pinata with a sign:
I had put a toy plastic key inside along with the goodies so they could "unlock" the door. Oh, the goodies, yeah, I'm the boring Mom who puts fruit leather and goldfish packs in the pinata, no candy. (they were about to get cake!)
Near the pinata I put bags with each of the kiddos' names on them.
Girls bags looked like Backpack from DtE and boys got Rescue Pack from Diego (sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the Rescue Pack ones and a cute little someone ripped my Backpack example). I pre-filled them with some Dora/Diego things that I picked up from the party store. I put their take-home bags here so they could put their spoils from the pinata in it rather than carry it around in their hands. I got the idea and the *template* for these bags here.
Oh, the pinata! Like I said, it was pull-string and I will post what I did later. I wanted it to look like a flower, because, I found this cute flower looking one here as my inspiration.
We finally got to "the door."
I got the picture of Dora out of a big wall decoration pack that was on clearance at the party store. If I didn't have it, I probably would have printed out a picture that was poster-sized and just taped everything together. Here is what she said:
I don't know why I felt like everything had to rhyme, but I did. There was no bouncer at the door making sure everyone had a hat on. I just like party hats and found these cute little sombreros at the party store. Perfect! I just hung them from a nearby tree for the kiddos to find.
So after everyone had a hat on, the kiddo that found the "key" used it on the door and we went in! The cake was waiting on the table for us. Cue the "We Did It" music! (no, I didn't actually have the "We Did It" song all ready, one of my friends and I half sang it, half laughed through the song).
Ta-da! The cake:
Yes, I made it myself. It's not the most amazing cake ever. I'm going to post what I did to make it soon. I made the star candles too, because could I find a star candle anywhere? No, but of course about a month after the party I found some at Wal-Mart. grr
So there you go, the DtE birthday party. We served tacos, tex-mex rice, corn and then cake and ice cream for dessert. Our daughter loved it, so that made it all worth it!
I hope you get some ideas you can use for your little one's birthday!
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
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