Firefighter Party -3yr- Fire Fighter Tug-o-War

Invitation to the party was informal since my son's guests were his cousins and a couple of friends.

When guests first arrived they each held a poster board design of a Firefighter Sam" face with the face part cut out and just his hat showing.  We then took everyone's picture as if they were Firefighter Sam with their face showing through.  This was for fun but also to use for Thank You cards later.  

Decorations were a stuffed Scooby Doo dressed in a firefighter outfit set on the main table with red yellow & blue helium balloons two small plastic inflatable fire trucks from a party supply place a red plastic table cloth and lots of red yellow and blue streamers hung from the lights over the table in an outward circular design. At the end of each length of streamers were 3 balloons: red yellow and blue. My son also had a fire fighter costume he wore part of the time that he'd gotten for Christmas which helped add to the decor.

We played 6 games.  

1) Hot Potato.  I had an adult helper start and stop kids music as the kids passed around a small stuffed Dalmation trying not to get caught holding him.  

2) Seek & Find.  I divided the kids into 3 teams - Firefighters Police Officers and Paramedics.  Then poured many inflated balloons in 3 different colors onto the floor in the living room in the middle of the kids.  Each team had large brown paper bags at their gathering spot and when I said go the members of each team grabbed balloons and stuffed the balloons into their team's bag.  The first team to gather all the balloons was the winner.  

3) Fire Fighter tug of war.  I divided the kids into equal teams and using a long piece of old garden hose (which I got for free from a local Freecycle member) with a bandana tied in the center and hanging down they tugged until one team pulled the bandana across the middle mark.  

4) Get low and go.  I had a long broom handle wrapped in red yellow and blue streamers all the way down the length of the stick then taped long pieces of alternating red & yellow streamers hanging down when the broom was held horizontally like a limbo stick.  When we told the kids the house was on fire they had to take turns getting low and crawling under the streamers without touching while an adult helper and I held the broom until they had passed under the "fire."  

5)  Rescue the kitty.  This was a super fun obstacle course I set up in my home.  Each child went one at a time by putting on a large floppy fire hat from my son's fire fighter costume and also had to carry a large plastic ax - very thick dull blade.  They got on the "plasma car" we'd gotten our son zoomed their way through our kitchen stopped at a large piece of colored butcher paper held in the doorway by myself and an adult helper and had to hack their way through with their ax ran down the hallway to the end where there were a bunch of inflated balloons taped to poster board which was attached to the wall and they had to take one off and sit on and pop it upon running back to the living room they had to crawl through a foldable play tube and fire truck (the kind that pops open) to a short step ladder where the cat (a stuffed Garfield) was waiting.  When they grabbed the cat we stopped timing them.  The younger kids just had fun and the older kids had fun and were competing on time.

6)  Stick the fire hat on the dalmation.  I got a super cute plastic poster of a dalmation sitting on the seat of a fire truck.  Each kid was blindfolded and tried to stick the fire hat on the dalmation.  

Six games seemed to be just about right for the younger kids so we had lunch after that.  

I served finger foods: hot dogs wrapped in biscuit potato chips mozarella cheese sticks w/pizza sauce heated in the oven and to be a little healthy fresh snap peas peeled baby carrots and broccoli florets - serve with ranch dressing ketchup & mustard.  To drink they had sherbet and punch.  The food was served on blue plastic plates with colorful fire fighter napkins and paper cups.  

The cake was an adorable 3-D cake cut out of a large rectangular cake glued with frosting and decorated with red frosting/white on the cab oreo cookie wheels gumdrops sirens on top a pretzel ladder on top middle and black licorice to outline the windows of the cab and 2 stripes running down the sides.  Around the cake I placed a couple of my son's plastic firefighter toys: fire fighter with extinguisher a hydrant & a road blockade marker. 

For Favors each child got to take home one of the helium filled balloons a small black & white stuffed dalmation a red plastic fire truck whistle a couple of fire truck stickers and a book which I chose specifically for the age of each guest - relating to fire fighters as much as possible.   It was a super fun party and the guests & birthday boy all loved it!"