Dr. Seuss Party 4yr - Green Eggs & Ham

For my child's 4th birthday I decided to do a Dr. Seuss theme. He loves to be read to and Dr. Seuss is his favorite. He loves books more than toys and I have always loved Dr. Seuss also so I thought this would be a fun and different idea. For the Invitations: My mom drew the invitations. She drew the Cat in the Hat, things 1&2, Yertle the turtle, the Grinch, Horton, Sam I am, and Fox in Socks around the edges of the invitation.

The invitation read: We're having a party. It's plain as can be. I want you to celebrate with me! The Cat will be there along with the fish, Horton & Sam, the 2 things and we wish that you would come too! We'll have much more fun! We'll play in the rain! We'll play in the sun! So get in your Who-train (date), Start making tracks (time), Meet us all at the Prairie of Prax (address). Food, Games, and prizes galore! We promise it won't be a bore!.

DECORATIONS: We took red and white tablecloths and hung them up like a circus tent opening on our front porch. We also put up a pennant banner across the entrance. We decorated our living room to look like the Jungle of Nool. My mom made a large palm tree using a green poster board and brown box paper. My son and I made truffula trees using brightly colored poster board and box paper for the trunks. My mom drew Horton on a poster board and we hung him up by our fireplace. We took two colors of green crepe paper streamer and we twisted them together and strung them up across our ceiling to look like vines. My mom drew the Fox in Socks on a poster board and we put him up by the entrance to our dining room.

In our dining room we took red and blue crepe paper streamers and twisted them together and strung them up along our ceiling so that the whole ceiling was covered. We typed up some of our favorite Dr. Seuss quotes and strung them up so that they were hanging from the ceiling as well as our Menu. We used a red table cloth for the food table. We took a glass fish bowl and filled it with a bouquet of large carnival lollipops, pixie sticks, marshmallow poles, and silly straws. I made labels for the lollipops using Dr. Seuss clip art and put my son's name and the date of the party on them. Then I tied a red and white ribbon around the bowl. For the drinks table we used a blue tablecloth. I found a large red tub and we put the drink bottles in it. For the gifts table we used a green table cloth. We put up a small fiber optic Christmas tree along with a Grinch doll.

GAMES: For games we started out with a Scrambled Eggs Super egg hunt. Whoever found the most eggs won this game. For prizes for this game I found some egg shaped sidewalk chalk. Next we played Help Horton Find the Speck. We made clovers out of pompoms and pipe cleaners. We placed a small pompom on the bottom of one of the larger pompoms and this was the speck. We placed the clovers into a piece of Styrofoam. Each child got to go up and pull out a clover until they found the one with the speck. The winner of this game as well as the birthday boy each won a Horton Hears a Who movie.

After the children played this game I gave each of them a goody bag filled with noise makers. I attached a label on the bag that read: Great gusts of loud racket rang high through the air. They rattled and shook the whole sky! And the mayor called up through the mad hullabaloo: Hey Horton! How's this? Is our sound coming through?". I told the kids they had to make a lot of noise to let the kangaroo know they were there like in the story.

Next we played Fox in Socks game. I piled up a large pile of socks. I told the kids to sit in a circle around the socks and take off their shoes. I gave them two minutes to put as many socks as they could on their feet and hands. Whoever had the most socks on won a prize. The top two each won prizes. I made labels for the prizes to let everyone know how I got the idea for the prize. One prize was a jump rope its label read: "If you hope to wash soup off a rope simply scrub it with SKROPE. SKROPE is so strong that no rope is too long." (One fish Two fish. Red fish Blue fish.)The other prize was a skip-it it's label read: "Hop! Hop! Hop! I am a Yop! All I like to do is hop from finger top to finger top!" (One fish Two fish. Red fish Blue fish.)

Next we played a milk bottle ring toss game. I took empty large YooHoo bottles and placed them in a box lid. I cut holes in the lid so that the bottles would fit into them to hold them in place. The winner of this game and the birthday boy each won prizes. The winner won a hula hoop it's label read: "Soapy Cooper's Super Soup-Off-Hoops Soak Suds." (One fish Two fish. Red fish Blue fish.) The birthday boy won a toy rake it's label read: I can hold up these books and the fish on a RAKE!". (Cat in the Hat).

Then we played the Grinch's gift pass. I played "You're a mean one" from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" soundtrack. As the music played the children passed around a gift. When the music stopped whoever was holding the gift got to unwrap it. The prizes here were kites like the ones Thing 1 & 2 had in the Cat in the Hat book. The last game we played was a Cat in the Hat dart toss game. My mom drew a large Cat in the Hat on a foam board and we attached it to another larger board. My brother attached red balloons to the red stripes on his hat and his tie white balloons to the white stripes on his hat and blue balloons all around the cat on the board. For the prizes here we took small toys such as paddle balls bouncy balls hand clappers whistles etc. and placed them in a bucket. For each balloon the children popped they got to get a prize out of the bucket.

FOOD: For food we had Green eggs and ham of course. For the green eggs we colored the white parts of the eggs green using green food coloring. We had ham sandwiches Poodles with Noodles (Pasta salad)from the Fox in Socks book Katroo dogs from the Happy Birthday to You book which were cocktail sausages in bbq sauce. We also had Cheese Trees like the ones in Fox in Socks. We took Styrofoam cones and placed cheese cubes and green grapes into them using tooth picks. We had the poem from the book next to them "Through three cheese trees Three free fleas flew while these fleas flew Freezy breeze blew Freezy breeze made these Trees' cheese freeze That's what made these Three free fleas sneeze". I printed out labels from the books telling which books each food item's idea came from. We had Skipper Zipp's Chips from the Oh Say Can you Say book (Chips and Dip).

For drinks we had Coca Cola bottles Orange Crush Strawberry Crush and Root beer. This was labeled "Silly Sammy Slick's Sodas" from the ABC book. We also had pink lemonade which was labeled "Yink's pink ink drink" from the One fish Two fish book. For the kids we had Kool-Aid bottles that were two different colors labeled "Moose Juice & Goose Juice" from the Sleep book. The condiments were labeled as Who Hash from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

CAKE: My mom made the cake. It was a topsy-turvy cake and the top layer looked like the Cat in the Hat's hat. She placed a cupcake on top of the hat with silly twisty striped candles. We also had red velvet cupcakes and we placed blue cotton candy on top to look like Thing 1 and 2's hair.

For ice cream we had "Schlopp" like in the "Oh the thinks you can think" book which was ice cream sundaes. After everyone ate I had a game for the adults to play. It was called "Oh Say Can You Say?". I printed out some of the difficult tongue twisters from the "Fox in Socks" and "Oh say can you say" books. I had each adult say the rhymes. If they got through the rhyme without messing up they went to the next round. Each round was a little harder to say. 

The last one to say it correctly won a box of Turtles candy which I labeled Yertle's turtles. Before everyone left I asked them to do just one more thing. I had bought my son a big book of Dr. Seuss stories. I made a poster to hang above the book that read: Wait! Stop here you see and write a special message to me! A birthday wish or just say Hi! To a very special 4 year old guy! On the front the back or on any pages. it is something I will cherish all of my ages! I had a jar of different colored pens and markers for everyone who came to sign the book. Everyone had a lot of fun even the adults. Dr. Seuss brings out the child in everyone.  "