Fishing Party -3yr- Fish, Fish, Shark!

For my son's birthday I had decided to have his birthday party at the local Hands On Museum... but my son had other plans... When ask about his birthday party he would say that he was having a fishing party. This was his 3rd bithday so this is really the first time he has realized that it is his birthday and actually had some input. So Hands On was put aside and a fishing party was born! 

So for the invitation I bought dowel rods with the plastic lanyard string and foamies paper.  I cut three fish from the foam and made a fishing pole. I decorated the first fish with the wiggly eyes and glitter for the scales and on the other two wrote the details of the party.  We were lucky to have a small pavilion at my work where there was a small creek that ran beside of it.  This was going to be the perfect place for the party. 

For games, I made a homemade magnetic fishing game.  I once again bought dowel rods, along with yarn and magnets.  I copied paper fish and had some of the older kids in the family help me to color them.  I then took safety pins and put through the mouth of the fish.  I placed the fish in a small blow up wading pool and the fishing began. 

For a small craft we decided to make Fish Windsocks or Water Windsocks...  The kids had a choice of using the fish that they caught in the pond (the paper fish) or there were some fish that were left uncolored for the children to color themselves.  We took toilet paper rolls with streamers and stickers and made them. 

We also played Fish, Fish, Shark \*Duck, Duck, Goose!  We had told the parents that they are welcome to bring the kids fishing poles.  Because this would be one of the last events of the day.  REAL FISHING. 

For the gift bags and party favors.  I found a magnetic fishing pole and fish at the local Dollar Tree and I also found a game where the fish will jump up and you have to try to catch them with a net.  As well as each child left with a tackle box These tackle boxes were made out of egg cartons painted blue and green with cardboard handles.  Each area was filled with goldfish crackers, gummi worms, bobbers, plastic fish, gummi sharks, bubbles, etc.

For the cake I made the cake from a family fun book.  It was shaped as a fish with Neeco wafers as the scales, and I also made cupcakes with fishing poles and swedish fish on them.  For other snacks, we had tuna sandwiches shaped like fish, chips, jell-o-bowls with swedish fish, dirt ice cream, and sea water to drink (blue punch). 

For decorations, I used different shades of blue, green streamers and covered the picnic tables with blue tableclothes and fishing nets with seashells and other colored fish.  We had one table for the food and one for the presents Presents is always the hard part of a party.  So we tried to do this while everyone else was eating and sitting down.  We had Caleb open presents. 

It was a wonderful party.  With an open agenda for the kids to be kids.  We and my son had a blast.  Fun for young and old alike especially since we had a range of kids from 1-16 years old~!