Go Diego Go Dora -3yr- Fishy Jell-O Cake

My daughter loves Go Diego Go, so we did a Diego/Dora themed party for her 3rd Birthday.  First I ordered plates, napkins, cups, invitation/thank you cards, flashlights and backpacks from Oriental Trading Company.  When the INVITATION arrived I wrote, Baby Tiger is lost, Diego & Dora need your help finding him on each invitation along with all the party info.  Next I bought orange & purple Rit Dye and orange, yellow, white & black felt from a craft store to make the Rescue Pack and Backpack! The backpack is item number IN-56/9034 and the flashlight is item number IN- 19/482 from Oriental Trading Company. 

The backpack worked great as the GOODIE BAG for each child, the cost per child for the backpack $1.66.  Using a deep sink I dyed 6 backpacks purple and 6 orange, (when the parents RSVP'd I asked which one their child would prefer).  The backpacks weren't as dark as I would have preferred, so I dyed them all a second time.  Once I added the felt faces with a glue gun the backpacks really came together.  The backpacks were so cute and the kids are still playing with them and talking about how they helped save Baby Tiger. 

Next I visited local party stores & Wal-Mart to see what kind of Diego and Dora party supplies they had.  I found Diego Spotting scopes and another Diego invitation that looked like the field journal, so I bought those to go in the backpacks.  The Field Journal invitation had a photo of Diego on the bottom half and the party info on the top. I covered the party info part on each invitation with a photo of Baby Tiger so they would know what they were looking for. (Nick Jr. has a Field Journal you can print from their web page, but the invitation is more authentic because it folded and opened and was printed on both sides.) Next I made a map like the one from Dora; I actually used a map from a couple of her books and cut and past the items to create my own one.  It had a picture of the Singing Bridge, a cave and a Rainforest. (Baby Tiger was lost in the Macaw Rainforest).  I printed the maps on Photo Paper so they would hold up better and then cut each one out and stuffed them in the backpack.  There is also a map craft at the Nick Jr. web site at http://www.nickjr.com/shows/dora/printables/dora s_super_map.jhtml that is really cute.  I also included Diego & Dora Fruit snacks and flashlights into each backpack.  

DECORATIONS: They have a great Dora & Diego Scene setter with the two of them jumping up and it says Happy Birthday for about $5, so I hung that on the back patio where the party was to be.  I just hung it on some green plastic table clothe to make it show up better on the house.  Then I found a Diego kids plastic chair for $5 at Toys R us and I put that in front of the scene setter and that's where we set all the presents.  I also purchased some flat cardboard pieces from the Box Store and painted a Swiper dressed up as a Polar Bear that I cut out and leaned against the fence for our adventure, a click the camera with a photo of Baby Tiger in a tree that I printed out as an 8 x 10 photo and then cut it into a circle and used tape runner from Creative Memories to attached it to the cardboard painting of click.  And finally I painted a Diego Rescue Center in the rainforest on one huge board that I leaned on the garage door for everyone to see as they arrived. This really set the mood.  

ADVENTURE DECORATIONS: For the singing bridge my husband used some landscaping cinder blocks to create steps and an old door laid across the top for the bridge.  I then covered the cinder blocks with some Red Brick paper decoration and it looked so cute.  For the cave I purchased 2 wardrobe boxes, without the bar and we laid them end to end to create a long tunnel and my husband hammered stakes into the ground on the sides to hold the boxes up. Then we covered the whole thing with two small rolls of brown packing paper that we wrinkled up to make it look like rocks/dirt.  For the Rainforest we used to two huge trees we already have in the yard, plus we added 3 blow up palm trees that we had from another party.  I also put a couple of stuffed snakes and monkeys in the trees and a bunch of foam Macaws from a Hawaiian party decoration. And of course Baby Tiger was in one of the trees. 

ACTIVITIES: When everyone arrived I tried to keep them away from the back patio so they wouldn't see the party decorations until after we'd rescued Baby Tiger.  So to kill time until all the children arrived we made a couple of Diego Crafts that I bought at the Party store.  The Craft Kit included 8 spotting scope kits, 8 rescue badges, and 8 Diego Frame kits.  I photo copied the badge onto photo paper, so each child got a Animal Rescue Badge and then each child go to choose which craft they wanted to make.  I also had some coloring pages copied of Dora & Diego for the kids to color if we needed to fill some more time before everyone got there.  Each child also received a Video Watch.  I printed the watch from the Nick Jr. site, http://www.nickjr.com/shows/diego/crafts/dieg_vid eo_watch.jhtml  and then used Tape Runner to glue the Macaw picture onto the watch.  Then I photo copied the watch onto Photo Paper and made 12 copies, one for each child.  I cut each watch out before the party and the parents cut the watch to size for each child and used Velcro dots to attach them to their wrist.  The Velcro dots made them reusable. 

When everyone arrived, I had someone use their cell phone to call the house.  I pretended it was Dora & Diego on the other end telling us that Momma Tiger called to say she was at Alexandra's party but Baby Tiger was lost.  Dora & Diego needed our help.  All the children heard the phone call and got very excited about starting our adventure. (Before the party my husband used my kids Fisher Price Tape Recorder toy to tape the click song from the Diego show, the Map song from Dora show and my husband singing Row, Row, Row your Boat song wrong.  Instead of life is but a dream he said life is but a Bowl of spaghetti. I carried the tape recorder with me for the adventure and I also had a video watch on, a field journal in my pocket and a plastic toy camera.

Here is my script for the adventure: Boys and girls Diego and Dora need your help, Mommy Tiger just called from Alexandra's Birthday Party and Baby Tiger is missing.  Can you help Diego and Dora find Baby Tiger? Great!  Everyone get your backpacks and get out your Field Journals.  Our field journals help us identify the animal in trouble.  Does everyone see Baby Tiger on their field journal? Now we need our special camera Click to find out where Baby Tiger is lost.  (Play song and use toy camera to take a picture.  Use the painted picture of Click the camera with a photo of Baby Tiger lost in Macaw Rainforest). Click the Camera says Baby Tiger is lost in the Macaw Rainforest. (Show painting of Click) We have to help Baby Tiger get back to Alexandra's party.  Diego's sister Alicia at the Animal Rescue center has sent us information on our video watches.  What do see on your watch?  Yes that is a Macaw from the macaw rainforest.  We need to hurry, Baby tiger might hurt one of the birds, but we don't know which way to go. Who do we ask for help when we don't know where to go?  The Map! (Play the Map song as the children get their maps out of their backpacks).

The Map says that we have to go over the Singing Bridge, and go through the Cave and that is how we will get to the Macaw Rainforest. Now we need to find the Singing Bridge.  What can we use to see things far away? Diego's Spotting Scope!  We can use Diego's spotting scope to see things far away.  Everyone get your spotting scope out of your backpack. Can you see the Singing Bridge?  Yeah, there it is. Vamanos.  Let's go rescue Baby Tiger. (Arrive at bridge) The Singing Bridge sings silly songs. (Play silly song) That's not right; we have to teach him the right words.  Let's sing the song the right way.  (Everyone sings the song the right way and then crosses the bridge) Ya! We made it passed the Singing Bridge! 

Okay what's next?  That's right we have to go through the cave.  Does anyone see the cave?  Great, let's go to the cave. Oh, oh, it looks dark in cave.  Look in your backpacks: Do you see something we can use to go through a dark cave? Yes!  A flashlight, everyone turn on your flash light and let's go through the cave. (Everyone goes through the cave) Okay we've gone over the Singing Bridge and through the cave.  What's next?  Yeah, The Macaw Rainforest.  Do you see The Macaw Rainforest?  Yeah, there it is!  Vamanos! (I spot the Polar Bear AKA Swiper and pull out my field journal) Wait, I see a Polar Bear.  My field Journal tells me that polar bears live only in the cold.  But it is really, really hot in the rainforest. Oh, no!  That's not a polar bear!  Do you know who it is?  It's Swiper the fox.  He'll try to steal our backpacks.  We have to say Swiper, no swiping! Say it with me: Swiper, no swiping!  Thanks for helping us stop Swiper! 

Now we need to get the rainforest to help save Baby Tiger and then we can go to Alexandra's party. Okay boys and girls we made it to the rainforest, does anyone see Baby Tiger?  Yeah, there he is, now we can get him back to his Mommy at Alexandra's Birthday Party.  Does anyone see Alexandra's Birthday Party? We had two Bounce houses set up to block the view of the back patio and so when we came around the bounce houses you could see the party. The tables were set, with Diego table clothes, party hats and momma tiger was there too.  We also had the scene setter with the presents, and Diego Balloons were on the backs of each child's chair. Plus Mylar Dora & Diego balloons set the mood. 

FOOD/CAKE:  For food we served pizza, Cheetos, chips and dip, a huge fruit salad and green punch.  My daughter opened her presents in front of the scene setter and then we took family photos of everyone in front of the scene setter before they left. 

CAKE:  My cake turned out really cute, but a little lopsided, oh well.  I got the idea from the cover of the Woman's Day June 2007 issue.  It was three round 9 inch layers with blue icing around the sides to look like water. Colored gold fish were stuck on the sides to look like fish swimming and white dots of icing to look like bubbles coming up and green Fruit by the foot cut out to look like seaweed.  For the top I cut out a portion of the top to create a lake or hole and frosted light brown frosting around the hole and on the other half of the top of the cake.  Then I sprinkled crushed Vanilla Wafers into the brown frosting to look like sand.  Then I filled the hole with blue Jell-O and stuck Dora & Diego bath toys in swimming suits into the Jell-O to make it look they are swimming.  It needed to chill for a couple of hours to set the Jell-O and then I added a couple of palm trees to the beach side of the cake using bread sticks and melted green chocolates shaped like palm leaves and Cocoa Puffs as coconuts.  My bread sticks kept cracking because my green chocolate leaves were too heavy for them, so I would use pretzel sticks next time.  The cake also had a couple of treasure chests made out of Hershey Nuggets and yellow sprinkles as gold.  The party was so much fun to plan and to have and it all came out so cute.  All the parents keep telling me how much fun their children had.