Barnyard Party -6yr- Lots of Barnyard Games

For my son Ben's sixth birthday he had a Barnyard movie/wii game theme. 

Invitations:  Invitations were a picture of the Barnyard animals in a conga line that I'd cut and pasted my son to the front of.  When the guests first arrived they were sent into the living room to color their favor bags.  I minimized, printed out, and glued on a Barnyard coloring page and glued them on brown paper sacks.  After we waited for everyone to arrive and colored our bags we started the games. 

GAMES:  In Barnyard wii game you have a cell phone and get text messages that tell you the missions you need to do.  For those missions you win Gopher Bucks which you can spend at Gopher Hill.    So I cut out a big cell phone shape and put squares of paper doublesticktaped together as text messages for each game/mission.  Then they got 4 Gopher Bucks" (raffle tickets) for each one. 

First game was Tease Em.  I drew Mrs. Beady The Farmer and The Mailman on paper and taped little wooden sticks to the back to hold them up.  Ben the birthday boy and I stood in front of the couch and everyone else stood behind it.  I would hold up one of the papers and start talking and looking out the window.  As long as I was looking out the window Ben would start dancing around and everyone would copy him.  But then I would say "What are those cows up to?" or something like it and when I'd turn towards them everyone had to get down on all fours.  I did each person twice and then let Ben pick the person that he thought copied him the best.  That person got an extra prize and the rest got their 4 Gopher Bucks. 

Maddie's Buddies - I got a text message from Mother Hen asking us to find Maddie (the chick) and her buddies and throw them back in their play nest.  We went into the yard where they found plastic eggs that had ping pong balls with chick faces on them inside.  Back in the house there was a target (made from construction paper taped to the floor).  They stood on the target and threw the ping pong balls into my youngest son's playyard/slide toy.  One of the balls had a picture of Maddie on it and the person that got that one got an extra prize. 

Honey Hunt - Next text message was from Freddy saying he was hungry and could we get him a jar of honey.  I had four bowls set out that had dyed yellow water in them.  On the front of the bowls were taped bee hives with holes cut out for them to stick their hands in.  I had sponges cut up into fours and they each got one.  They had to reach in and soak up the "honey" with their sponges until the bees came.  I taped construction paper bees on fishing line to a ruler and held them up and made buzzing noises every couple of minutes.  Then they would go over to the empty jar that said Honey and squeeze the honey into it.  They did that till they reached the line then got 4 Gopher bucks. 

Next I got a text message to find Pip and some of Maddies' Buddies and bring them to Izzy Springs Golf Course.  Before the party I put a ping pong ball with a picture of Pip on it in the playyard.  The person that found Pip got a prize.  The rest grabbed one of the other balls and we went to Izzy Springs.  Izzy Springs was my oldest son's bedroom and I just used his toys to make different hole for golf.  I cut out little picture of a golf ball on a tee that said start and just litte rectangles that said finish to show where each one ended.  We had a potato head geotrax dressup science and two castle holes.  You could use just about anything.  Really the hardest part of this was trying to pick just 6 things to use.  Next message was from Pig asking us to find ingrediants to make a pie.  The ingrediants were under rocks marked with x's (like in the wii game). 

For this game I made rhyming clues like: I need two peas no make that TEN hiding under a cup that says B__ .  This was under a cup that said Ben on his desk and under it was the next clue and a little piece of paper that had ten letter p's glued on to it. All the ingrediants were silly picture things (a picture of a toe with a face on it that said Hi I'm Tom I'm a toe for tomatoe a cow with flower petals drawn around its face for cauliflower a dog in a sweater under a son that said whew I'm hot for a hot dog a jar with dried beans and a plastic pig for pork and beans etc).  As we found the ingrediants we put them in a pie plate.  I cleaned out one of the drawers of his dresser and drew and taped on dials and such to make it look like an oven.  I also drew Pig with a chef's hat and put that on top of the dresser. 

The last clue told us to put the pie in and count to twenty.  I had another pie plate full of puffy peppermint candies in the drawer and when they counted to twenty I took that one out said it was "Pig's famous Peppermint Pie" and let them all take a piece.  The next message was from Peck (the chicken) asking if we could come to the barn to help him fly and play some other games too. 

The Birthday Barn -  This one had 6 games a craft a song and a "candy tree".    First thing I gave them what I called Candy Cards.  On the front was the same picture from their favor bags with a place for their name and on the back it was divided into six sections.  For each game they wrote down how many points they got. 

The puzzle - I drew a picture of some of the barnyard animals on a piece of posterboard then cut it into puzzle pieces.  I taped some of the pieces down on a board on the bed so it wouldn't be too hard.  There was a timer next to it.  A sign next to it said Write down number 3 if you finish before time is done.  If you're not quite through write down number 1. 

Pick a duck - I bought farm themed rubber ducks and wrote numbers on the bottom.  A sign above it said What number will it be? Pick a duck and you will see!  Whatever number they got is what they wrote down on their card.    Lotto stickers - I got a roll of farm animal stickers from Oriental Trading.  I hung strips of them on the wall.  I lifted up the edge of each one just enough to write a number (or letter) on the back.  A sign said - Will you get a letter? Or a number? 3 or 1 or 2? No matter what you get the sticker is for you.  The letters were the first letters of the farm animal ducks (like if they got C they won the cow duck). 

Veggie Patch Match - I turned a cardboard box over and covered the top with brown paper and the sides with green.  I put the green so it stuck up over the side and cut slits in it all around to make it look like grass.  On the top I cut 20 slots.  I used the flaps of the box to cut out 20 strips which I glued clipart of  2 each of 10 different veggies.  On the tops of the strips I put green paper cut to look like carrot tops.  They pulled up two at a time until they found a match. The sign above it said Pick the plants till you get a match easy as can be Just one match and you can pick a candy from the tree. 1st try = 3 2nd 3rd or 4th try=2 5 or more tries = 5 

Pin the tail on the Pig - I drew Pig on a piece of posterboard and made an x where the tail would be.  I divided it into 3 sections.  The section where the tail went was three points then 2 points next to that and 1 point up by the head.  The tails were just strips of pink construction paper curled up with doublestick tape on one end.  Chicken Launch - I printed out a picture of Peck and cut out his legs wings and head and taped them to a small football.  I drew a barn on posterboard and cut out a window.  I put it up in the closet and had three lines to throw from. The furthest away was 3 points then 2 and the closest was one. 

Chicken Hats - I made chicken hats from paper plates.  It's a craft I saw on an old tape of Lambchops Playalong.  Basically you cut out a chicken shape then cut all the way around except the bottom of the chicken to make the hole then bend the chicken up.  I set out feathers gluesticks googles eyes markers and stickers for them to decorate the hats. The tape also had a chicken song so I played that video on a tv I had set up in the room.  On top of the tv I taped Peck's head wings on the side and legs hanging down off the bottom. While they decorated hats and watched the video I added up the points on their candy cards. 

Candy Tree - I made a big construction paper tree to hang on the wall.  I used four brown pieces lined on top of each other for the trunk then cut out about 12 cloud shapes from green to make the top.  I put rolled over tape all over the top and stuck different candy on it.  I made sure to set a stepstool next to it.  I called the kids up three at a time and told them how many points they had and that was how many pieces off candy they got to pick off.  Next I got a text message from Joey (the gopher) saying Gopher Hill was open but that Deg (the coyote) was in the way.  It said there were animal friends that would help them get Deg in The Outhouse and that you could find out which animals by looking at your candy card.  There was a sign on the bathroom door that said The Outhouse.  In there was my son's big bin of beanie babies.  On the front of each candy card I had written a word that rhymed with one of the animals (jog/dog wider/spider).   

Defeat Deg - I drew Deg on a piece of posterboard and hung him from my bedroom doorway.  I just hung him with strips of tape so he would come down easier.  The kids took turns throwing their animals at him till he fell down. 

Gopher Hill -  Behind my bed I hung up a blanket that had a wildlife scene on it.  I glued the letters to spell out Gopher Hill and Joey the gopher onto it.  In a u-shape on the front of the bed  the toys were all divided and lined up (assortment from oriental trading).  On each side table there were two pay jars (crystal light containers with holes cut in top) and signs that said pay here.  I had them pick 5 things at a time then switch spots and pick 5 more till they'd used up all their Gopher Bucks. 

Then I got a text message that said Are you hungry? There's cake in the barn.  I had covered an upside down box with paper to make a barn and put it over the cake in the middle of a table in the dining room.  Above it I hung little word bubbles that said moo quack oink and neigh.  

CAKE: I made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  As I put on the frosting I scraped across the cake to pull up some crumbs and bits of cake so it looked like mud.  In the middle was a pig made of fondant.  I cut strips of cardboard and made a  fence around the cake pan.  Instead of serving it in slices I used a spoon and put it in cups and a scoop of ice cream went on top.  Then they got to pick from the "ice cream topping buffet". 

THE TABLES: In the carport I set up two round tables with pink tablecloths and taped on ears nose and eyes to make them look like pig faces.  In between was a long rectangle one with blue tablecloth. In the middle of the blue table was a tray with little cups and bowls of different ice cream toppings (gummy bears and worms sprinkles cut up wafers teddy grahams gumdrops regular and flavored marshmallows) I made sure to put some of each on each side so the kids could walk along either side.  Also on the blue table were the place setting items. 

Place Settings:  The drinks were hugs drinks with labels I made and printed out taped on them. The labels had Pip (the mouse from the movie) and said Pip Punch. For the napkins  I made napkin rings by just cutting strips of construction paper and gluing on little barns that had 6's on them.  The spoons were pink with strips of pink construction paper curled and taped on them.  I put them in ceramic pig that was meant to hold a sponge so they were little pig tails.  The cups were pink and had Pig's face and a word bubble that said Pig Out! Glued onto them. 

After everyone was done eating I got a text message that said it was time to open presents and after that one that said you can go play or do whatever you want.    My son had a great time and I received a lot of really nice compliments.  I had a lot of fun too :)"