Little Einsteins -5yr- Fly Around the World

My five year old daughter wanted a Little Einsteins party. 

INVITATIONS:  I printed 3 in x 5 in invitations onto cardstock.  I found clip art of the Little Einsteins kids in the rocket.  I put the rocket on the left side of the card and on the right I added the words:  We've got a mission!  We're going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship to celebrate XXX's 5th birthday!  Zooming through the sky on Feb 10 at 1 pm.  Climb aboard, get ready to explore at our address.  Come on, let's go, Little Einsteins.  We need you, Little Einsteins, yeah!  RSVP to XXXX PARTY THEME:  I wanted to do some kind of mission that would take us to different geographic locations, just the like the show does.  To simplify things, I decided we would visit one location for each Little Einstein character.  Quincy, June, Annie, and Leo have all lost something and we need to travel around the world to find their lost items.  Quincy lost his instruments in the South American Rainforest, June lost her dancing slippers in Antarctica, Annie lost her song in the Pacific Ocean, and Leo lost his baton back home in California.

DECORATIONS:  I printed out the art work from the various shows and mounted them with the title and artist on 12 x 18 paper.  I found some large musical notes in a teacher supply store and put those and the art on the walls in our kitchen, our main gathering room.  The rain forest was in the family room. I bought long sheets of brown butcher paper and made three floor to ceiling trees in three corners of the room.  I cut large palm leaves out of green butcher paper and added them to the trees. 

Then I hung streamers of different lengths and shades of green around and above each tree.  I printed out photos of various rain forest animals and taped them to the trees.  Antarctica was in my entry hall. I bought a roll of white plastic table cloth covering.  I covered the stair railings in white to make it look like white glaciers.  I covered the walls in the entry hall in white butcher paper.  I printed out pictures of penguins and taped them up through out Antarctica.  I also bought some stuffed penguins and placed them around the stairs.  The Pacific Ocean was in the living room. 

At a party store I found a 4 foot tall roll of plastic covering with a ocean water print on it.  I covered the walls of the living room with that and then taped onto it paper fish also bought from the party store.  I ordered 36 balloons of various shades of blue and turquoise and put them on the ceiling.  The overall effect was great.  It looked like we were underwater.  I also made a Rocket room. I taped 3 three foot strips of red butcher paper together and cut it out in an oval.  I rolled up two additional strips of red paper to make the rockets and placed them on each side of the oval.  The kids sat on Rocket" each time we flew to a new place.

OPENING ACTIVITIES:  When the kids arrived they did two art activities.  The first was to paint a baton.  Prior to the children arriving I hot glued styrofoam balls to wooden dowels.  The kids painted these batons with tempura paints.  It was messy but the batons looked cute.  They also added stickers to a framed piece of art.  I bought a package of 6 in x 9 in fun foam that was self sticking on the back.  Using a craft knife I cut a 4 in x 6 in hole in the middle of each sheet of foam.  Online I found a jungle art print by one of the artists shown on a LE episode and printed out several 4x6 in copies of it.  I used the fun foam sheets as frames for the art.  I then bought a big tub of self stick jungle foam animals and had the kids stick the animals around the edge of the frame.  I made coloring books for each child using printables from the Little Einsteins website.

MISSION ACTIVITIES:  When everyone arrived and the art activities were done I had them gather together.  I introduced each character from the Little Einsteins (using print outs from the Little Einsteins web site) and told the children that each character had lost something and it was our mission to find it.  I bought the Musical Missions CD with the opening song on it and played it for the kids.  We ran off to Rocket Room where the kids sat on the giant Rocket I had made from butcher paper. 

I showed them a world map and told them that we would be flying around the world.  I placed a Quincy sticker on South America a June sticker on Antarctica an Annie sticker on the Pacific Ocean and a Leo sticker on California to show them where we would be going.  I played the Blast Off song from the CD.  The kids loved this.  They all did the "pat pat pat" and "raise your hands high and blast off!"  Then we ran to the family room/rain forest.  

QUINCY:  I taped pictures of various musical instruments to the different rain forest animals and told the kids that the animals had stolen Quincy's instruments.  I gave each child a musical clapper shaped like a butterfly.  They had tiptoe piannisimo (very quietly) up to an animal then shake their clapper fortisimo (loudly) to scare the animal away and take back the instrument.  They brought the instruments back to a large print out of Quincy and we returned to rocket for our next trip.

JUNE:  June has lost her ballet slippers amongst the penguins in Antarctica.  I found some clip art of ballet shoes printed off a copy for each child and taped them around the pictures of the penguins.  The children ran off to find the ballet shoes and brought them to the large printed out copy of June.  As their reward they received a homemade bean bag made from penguin printed fabric.  I told them to hold the bean bag between their knees and waddle like a penguin back to rocket. ANNIE:  Annie lost the notes to her song under the Pacific Ocean.  I printed out musical notes and taped them to the strings of the balloons.  I also printed out blank musical scores. 

The children had to find the musical notes and return them to the scores.  I had 16 kids so I printed four different colored scores and 16 notes in each color.  I split the kids into four color groups.  Each child found four notes in his color and returned them to their colored score.  It worked quite well.  I used real music from one of the episodes and made up words to fit the party.  "It's Clare's birthday. It's Clare's fifth birthday!  It's Clare's birthday.  It's Clare's fifth birthday!"  I played the music sang it a couple of times and then we all sang it together as we raced back to rocket.

LEO: Leo lost his baton.  This was a simple game of Pin the Baton on Leo.  After the game I passed back out the batons the kids had painted when they arrived.  I played the music we had sung to earlier and the kids all conducted with their batons.  I turned the volume down and had them conduct very lightly and turned the volume up and had them conduct with lots of energy.  Then I told them that it was Mission Completion and it was time for cake!

CAKE: I made a cake in the shape of Rocket.  It looked great.  I used a round cake for the bottom and a mixing bowl shaped cake for the dome on top.  Using a suggestion found online I cut apart some ice cream cones and used them as the rockets on each side.  

GOODY BAGS:  I used red party bags.  Each child took home their homemade coloring book painted baton framed art butterfly clapper penguin beanbag bubbles and stickers of paint brushes and crayons (I couldn't find LE stickers).   The decorations took a lot of work but they really added to the Mission!    "