Pool Luau -4yr- Gilligans Island Party Signs

For my daughters 4th birthday, we had a Luau theme. I hired 3 teenage girls to help out with the party. They wore tank tops that said "Lifeguard" on them, along with a grass skirt.

I also typed up an itinerary on the computer a week or so before and e-mailed it to the girls. When the guests arrived they were greeted with a lei and a grass skirt ( the boys got straw hats and a tropical bandana). We had a "Tropcal Tattoo" table at the entrance and all the kids got to pick a tattoo. We also hung a rope between 2 sheperds hooks and hung sand pails with the kids names on them so they had a place to store all thier goodies. We had a bounce house set up , filled with beach balls and we also had one of the girls in the pool at all times as a Lifeguard. 

After the kids played for a while, we brought out plastic shoe boxes filled with colored sand and let the kids do sand art. I had collected baby food jars and plastic juice jars and they worked just fine. 

After sand art, we had a hula hoop contest. The kids hula hooped to "Catch a Wave" and "Surfin' Safari".  Throughout the party, we had Island music playing.

After Hula hoops, we served a lunch of hot dog "Octopuses" and Goldfish crackers "swimming " in blue cream cheese.  We also served gummy sharks in individual clear plastic cups and tropical trail mix in sand buckets.

After lunch we divided the yard with tape and had a water ballon contest. We palyed the theme to Hawiia Five-0 and Wipeout, and let the kids go nuts.

We then formed a Conga line and the helpers lead the kids through the yard , out front, in the front door and out the back. We "conga ed straight to a Limbo line, which lead to the Pinata.

After the Pinata , we served ice cream in tropical cups and served the cake. We made a beach theme cake with blue frosting and graham crackers for the beach. We had palm trees and Teddy grahams swimming in the ocean with fruit rings as floats. We also had a few gumballs to make it look they were playing ball in the ocean. 

For party decorations, we cut out "palm leaves" from green poster paper and hung them on our fence. We placed real bananas on top of them and they looked really cool. (We let the kids take home the bananas). We also had fish nets and tropical garland, plus some Pink Flamingos throughout the yard . We hung parrots and a blow up monkey in the tree.

We also set up a kids tent and had a sign in front that said "Pirate's Cove".  Inside we had a pirate chest, (painted a cardboard box)and necklaces, gold dubloons and ring along with pirate bags to collect their "Booty". 

We also decorated my daughters playhouse as a tiki hut, with paper palm leaves, a straw curtain and a sign that read "Tiki Hut".  We made all the signs from foam board and painted them and then cut the edges to make it look like somethimg off of Gilligans Island. The kids really had a blast and I saved a lot of the decorations for the future.

I would Highly recommend hiring some teenagers to help out. They were a lifesaver and kept everything running smoothly. Definetly worth the money!I also recommmend writing up a schedule for the party, it kept everything moving along and we didn't forget anything.