Jungle Safari Party -1yr- Animal Charades

For my son's first birthday we had a Jungle Safari Theme Party however this would be a great theme for any age.

INVITATION: I bought some invites at a dollar store with jungle safari animals on them. To personalize them I printed off the follow saying with a zebra border and glued it inside the invite. Hey Party Animals! Lions, Tigers, and Bears, Oh My! It's a Party. No Lion-It's Drew's 1st Birthday. Come on over and monkey around with us. Get ready for some roaring fun.

DECORATIONS: I covered the wall behind the kitchen table in my dinning room with craft paper I purchased at Lowes. I put up an assortment of animals that I printed off the computer and colored. I laminated all the animals using clear contact paper. To laminate just cut two pieces of contact paper to fit over the animal and place them sticky side to sticky side with the animal in between the cut out around the animal. I printed leaves I found online, laminated them and then hung them up. With the craft paper I made vines to go around the craft paper on the wall. To make the vines I cut the craft paper in strips and twisted it. I hung the vines and leaves around the chandelier and in the entry way of the dinning room. The morning of the party we cut some leaves off of the trees in the yard and hung them around too. I hung a banner on the wall that said happy birthday with jungle animals on it from the dollar store.

For the table I used a solid green table cloth and hung another banner from the dollar store on the front of it. I used strips of zebra material around the serving dishes. I used zebra material and made a slip cover to go over the baby's high chair. It looked great in the photos. I used the zoo pals plates and bowls for cake and ice cream. I made a banner for the front door out of craft paper and vines. I put Drew's Party in big letters I printed using crazy zoo font I downloaded from online onto construction paper and laminated these as well. I printed out It's A Jungle in There out of leaf letters I found in clip art, laminated them and hung them on the top of the sign for the door. I hung jungle animals all around the banner on the door. I cut out photos of my sons face and placed them on a face of a monkey and lion's head I printed and hung up. I taped laminated paws I printed that said Drew's party ahead on the sidewalk leading up to the door.  I had another table with a solid yellow table cloth where I put the kids favor bags and more snacks. I put vines around this table and set out zoo animal sipper cups I ordered from OTC for all the kids. I also placed some of the jungle safari animals my kids already had around for decoration.

ACTIVITIES: I downloaded animal sounds on a CD and had it playing in the background of the party the whole time.

GAMES: We started off playing animal charades. I printed photos and names of animals and placed them on index cards. We split into two teams. Then we were allowed to act out the animal on the card we received and or make the sounds of the animal. At the end we had one more prize for the person who could do the best monkey. We also had coconut bowling. I bought a coconut and 10 bottles 1/2 full of water. I printed labels for them that said coconut bowling with a pick of a palm tree and a monkey. I then laminated a piece of construction paper with 10 circles I cut the size of the bottle in the shape of a bowling pin set up. I tape this down on the drive way and put another piece of construction paper with a picture of a monkey and a coconut a few feet away that said Monkeys line up here for bowling. We had hours of fun with this until my niece busted the coconut.  I downloaded a CD with animal songs such as The lion sleeps tonight and George of the jungle and placed numbers I printed and laminated on construction paper on the ground. I then started the music and everyone went around and then stopped the music and everyone stopped. I pulled a number out of the bag and whoever was on that number one a small candy bar.

PARTY SNACKS: For the snacks I made cute little labels out of the crazy zoo font also. I printed the names on to labels and placed them on colored construction paper. I then laminated them. For the punch I made my version of Jungle Juice combining orange kool-aid with ginger ale and pineapple juice. I placed it in my clear punch bowl and put a strip of zebra material around the bowl.  I labeled it Jungle Juice. I made Safari Skewers on toothpicks using cantaloupe, pineapple and kiwi with Hawaiian fruit dip. The veggie tray was on a round platter in the shape of a lions face using carrots for the mane, sliced round yellow squash for the face and black olives for the eyes. I placed the olives in a small hole I cut in two pieces of the yellow squash so that they would stand up. I used a red bell pepper labeled and filled with rumble in the jungle ranch dip ( ranch dressing dip). I served zebra snack cakes, bananas, tiger tails (cheetos) animal crackers, gummy worms, and banana fruit puffs.

CAKE: I made my son his own individual cake since was turning 1. I made it round out of white and chocolate using a zebra effect by in the center spooning in a little white cake mix, then spooning in a little chocolate cake mix following this patter until your pan is ¾. After baking and letting it cool I iced it green. I made two circles on top and filled them in with ground up graham crackers. Around the two circles and on the bottom edge of the cake we placed grass we made out of coconut. I made by shaking a table spoon of milk with some green food coloring and shredded coconut in zip lock. I placed a little toy giraffe in one circle and a #1 candle in the other. I then placed it on a plate and put graham crackers around it.

For the big cake we made 2 layers out of white and chocolate. The white cake was on top. I made cakes the day before the party and placed the white cake in the freezer. While it was freezing I made berry blue Jell-O as directed on the package and placed in fridge. Just as Jell-O started getting thick I pulled the cake out of freezer and cut a whole in shape of pond out of the cake. Be sure not to go to close to edge or through the bottom of the cake. I then put the Jell-O into the hole and place in fridge for a couple of hours. I iced the whole cake green and then we made a road using graham cracker crumbs. I also made a hill out of the cake we cut out for the Jell-O. I covered all the top but road and pond with green coconut and put green coconut around the bottom edge of cake. I then placed plastic animals and trees we bought at Wal-Mart on top. I put a safari jeep match box car on the road I found at Wal-Mart. I used toasted coconut covered marshmallows for rocks.

FAVORS: I made cute little monkey bags out of brown paper bags. Then I cut out a large tan circle from construction paper and cut it horizontally but left the top half a little bigger. I glued it to the bag and glued 2 black dots for eyes on top of that. Then I cut med brown circle and placed a smaller tan circle inside of it. Then I folded one side of the ears and put the glue on the fold placing it on the bag. Inside I placed a safari rubber ducky, animal print sun glasses, animal crackers and banana runts from OTC. After the party I uploaded the pictures and printed off thank you cards from Wal-Mart's photo department. I placed four great photos on the front of the card and the inside said Just wanted to send a load ROAR thanking you for coming to my party and for the great gifts. Thank you. XOXOXO Drew