A Gem of a Party (6-9yr) Stop Jewel Thief

A Gem of a Party - 6-9 year olds  My daughter is turning 8 and she loves rocks, jewels and highly polished stones of any kind.  We first considered having a rock hounding party for her, but I couldn't find a lapidoptarist to lead a rock hunt.  So, we decided that a "gems and jewels" party would meet the needs.

INVITATIONS:  She cut out big gem shaped cards and colored each one in individual gem colors (ruby red, emerald green, etc.)  We made up a poem: "Rubies are red, sapphires are blue I'm having a gem party, won't you come, too?  Jewels are lovely, I'm turning 8 emeralds are green, and birthdays are great!"  We listed the location as Phoebe's Gem Emporium.

CRAFTS:  We have planned two crafts.  As girls arrive, each one will select a gem out of a bucket.  That will be her "gem name" for the party.  She will decorate a party hat with the color of gem and acrylic gems from the craft store.  The second craft will come later during the party where we talk about birthstones.  Each girl will make a simple necklace with a birthstone bead.  This will be part of the "goody bag" items as we are trying to minimize any plastic/non-useful items. 

Goody bags will be simple paper bags that go along with the jewel hat color.  We will fill these up throughout the party.

GAMES: 
1)  Princess, Princess, Where's your jewel? - This is an easy adaptation of doggy, doggy where's your bone.  Decorate a chair as a throne.  You only need to add a jewel.  Will be fun. 

2) Stop! Thief! - This one is take off on 4 Corners.  Mark out four corners in the grass to be the corners of your "gem shop".  Each corner should be assigned a jewel name and be decorated in that jewel color.  We plan to have a small bucket of that jewel in each corner to keep it simple, we will use colored glass beads from the craft store for this one.  Nominate 1 person to be the Gem Shop Owner.  They will don a "jewel-encrusted" mask/blindfold.  The rest of the kids are jewel thieves.  While the shop owner is blindfolded, the thieves each pick a corner and grab some jewels.  The shop owner calls out a corner jewel - everyone in that corner has to give back the jewels and goes to jail.  The round starts again with remaining thieves choosing a corner again.  As with the birthstone necklace, the jewels from this game will fill the treat bag. 

3)  Name that stone - This group of 8 year-olds is pretty "rock savvy".  We'll give them the chance to identify gems with a few hints about color and other qualities.  Requires a sample of 10 or so beads.  Place each one in a little envelope with a number on it.  Give the kids something to record their guess on.  Can do this as teams if you think that it will be too challenging for some.  At end, let kids pick one envelope randomly from basket to add to their goody bag.  

OTHER ACTIVITY IDEAS: 
1) Pan for gems - check out sapphiremines.com where you can purchase "sapphire gravel kits". 

2) Gem hunt in yard  

3) Princess Jewels stories - read a chapter out one of the princess jewel series books

4) collect fancy dress up clothes in the color of several gems - leave these in a bucket in the corner for "fill in time" 

FOOD:  For cake, we will use the treasure chest cake from familyfun.go.com - always a great source for fun cake ideas.  Rather than coins, we will fill the chest with jewels, of course.  Other food ideas - jello jewels (jigglers in pretty jewel colors), ring pops - closest thing to fancy jewels that I've found.  Serve sparkling apple juice in plastic champagne flutes - our bejewelled princess are certainly worth of it.

Fun, pretty easy to pull off, and nothing plastic left over.  My kind of party!