Bowling Party -7yr- Scooby Bowling Shirts

My son Colin is turning 7 this year and he wanted his birthday party at the local bowling alley.

Having a birthday party at the bowling party is great because they supply the invitations, thank you cards, (unfilled) goody bags, pizza, and soda, plus they clean up and there is the bonus of a real bowling pin given to the birthday child. For Colin's party, we wanted to jazz it up a little.

First of all, although they supplied them, we made our own invitations - or I should say Colin made his own invites. He used the shape of the bowling pin from the alley's invitation and traced it on construction paper and made a bowling pin (white with a red stripe which he cut out and glued to a black piece of paper. He cut out four circles out of different color paper about an inch and glued them on the pin vertically (under the red stripes). Then he cut out white circles about 3/4 and glued them and put them on top of the colored circles.

On the white circles he wrote on each letter "B O W L". On the side we typed up "It's a Party in the East Lane! Please spare the time to join us to celebrate! Then we wrote "Colin H's 7th Birthday! and put the date time place and RSVP. We cut them ouut and pasted them on red and yellow paper for a background. They really stood out. Then we cut out aluminum foil stars and put them on the black. It really made it pop. With this we took it to Staples and made copies and they looked FANTASTIC! 

Colin always wears a special crown for his birthday. This was a fun one. We took white poster board and cut out a crown using a crown from Burger King as one to trace. We painted the whole thing blue - back and forth. Then we traced Scooby's head 5 times onto the left over poster board about 4 inches and painted them the appropriate colors - brown black red white) and when dried stapled them on the crown's points. For the base of the crown we used the left over poster board from that and painted and cut out bowling pins and balls and stapled them as well. It looked great. So on to the party.

When the children walked in they were all given t-shirts I had painted with fabric paint. Colin loves Scooby Doo so I painted Scooby Doo on them. If you are not good at drawing it is easy to do. You can get a coloring page off the internet of Scooby Doo trace the drawing you want flip the tracing paper over and with a pencil trace the figure again so the original pencil lining will show up on the t-shirt. Then go over it in thin black permanent marker or fabric marker. The t-shirts were nice and colorful and in a bowling alley filled with people it made it easier to see who belonged with the party and who did not. The children played one round of bowling the regular way.

Then the second game got much more fun. Before they bowled they had to put their hand in a colored bag with Scooby's picture on it and pick out a piece of paper. On the paper it told the child how to bowl - for instance - "bowl backwards say I am the best bowler in the world" or "bowl criss cross applesauce" "sing happy birthday to Colin or or it asks questions they have to answer about Scooby Doo. The kids loved it. Sometimes it would say to do or say something and if you do it, you get a prize (all kids eventually got a prize). This was a lot of fun and made it different and very funny. We then presented medals (gotten from the dollar store 5 for $1)to all of the children for a job well done.

Afterwards it was time for pizza and cake which we had ordered from a local grocery store. It wasn't Scooby (because they didn't have it) but Speed Racer instead which they kids seemed to think was cool. There was an arcade there so each child was given  a little baggie with $2 worth of quarters so they could play until the parents came. Each child got a Scooby Doo book (found at Joann Fabrics for $1 each) and Scooby Fruit Snacks.

Everyone had a really great time and my son said it was one of his favorite parties ever. The thank you" cards consisted of a picture of Colin and one of the children at the birthday party. Walmart will print up special photo thank you cards for 38 cents. They have a good deal because you don't have to buy an entire pack of 12 you can get them individually so each child gets a special thank you.   "