Sesame Street -2yr- Oscar's Trash Throw Game

For my daughter's 2nd birthday, we decided on a "Sesame Street" theme since it was her favorite show. 

For the invitations, I found some adorable personalized themed invites on birthdayinabox.com.  I added the phrase "Let us tell you how to get to Ashlyn's 2nd Birthday Party.  At the bottom of the invitation, I had them print, "This party is brought to you by the letter "A" and the number "2".  I also printed up a separate page with directions to our house and titled it "Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Ashlyn's Street!" 

DECORATIONS: I tried to do as many of the decorations as I could myself to save on money and homemade decorations are always so cute!  On the front of the door when guests arrived I made the famous "Sesame Street" street sign out of green and yellow posterboard.  Instead of writing Sesame Street I wrote "Ashlyn's Party."  I went to my local scrapbook store and punched out the block letters from white card stock and glued them onto the homemade sign.  I decorated with mainly balloons in all the primary colors and sent each child home with a balloon souvenier. 

GAMES:  For each game I made a sign out of posterboard and made the characters represented in the game out of felt and glued them to the posterboard.  The games were all homemade and also added to the decor of the theme.  We played "Put the Cookie in Cookie Monster's Mouth."  I made a huge cookie monster out of blue posterboard and added the white circles for the eyes and some googly eyes, then made a big black mouth for the kids to aim the cookies into.  For the cookies, I cut out circles from tan colored felt and then added small black pom poms for the chocalate chips.  I put some double stick tape on the back and blindfolded each child.  There were only winners at our party since most of the kids were toddlers.  Each child who played the cookie monster game received a bag of cookie monster cookies (snack bags with small chocolate chip cookies).  While they played, the song "C is for Cookie" was playing in the background.  

We also played "Oscar's Trash Throw".  I saved all my junk mail and crumpled it up for the trash and used an old silver garbage can for Oscar's home.  Kids stood behind the line and aimed to throw trash into Oscar's can.  Each child received a fun craft kit to take home which was Oscar the Grouch and his garbage can.  They are simply old film cannisters (which you can get at your local film developing center, they gladly give them to you!), green pom poms for Oscar, googly eyes and a small thing of string.  You glue the green pom pom popping out of the cannister, then glue on the eyes.  Last, you glue the lid of the cannister on the top of the pom pom to look like the lid and tie the string through the top for the handle.  Parents loved the idea!  While they played the trash toss game, Oscar's theme song, "I Love Trash" was playing in the background." 

We also played "Ernie's Rubber Duck Ring Toss."  I filled up an old washtub with water, set the inflatable Rubber Duck inside and then the kids stood back and tried to toss the rings around the duck's neck.  The "prize" they all received at this game was a rubber duck bath squirter toy which I found very inexpensive at Oriental Trading Company.  I also found the game there too.  While they played the game, Ernie's favorite tune, "Rubber Ducky you’re the One" was playing.  Lastly, we had "Elmo's Dance Party".  We played the theme song to "Elmo's World" and had the kids play freeze dance.  When the music stopped, they had to, too!  The give away at Elmo's was a bag of Goldfish crackers in honor of Dorothy, Elmo's pet goldfish!  The games seem to be a big hit because all ages were capable of playing and enjoying them! 

FOOD:  I had your standard sub sandwich and salad assortment for the adults but for the kids, I bought the Ernie treat bags at the party store and wrote each childs name on a bag.  I pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cut them with a cookie cutter into the shape of a rubber ducky.  I also put in a juice box, bag of chips and Elmo fruitsnacks.  This went over great with parents and the kids.  Kids never seem to enjoy the sub sandwiches and parents liked the bags because it was so much easier to hand a kid their bag and let them have a picnic in the backyard with their friends while they enjoyed their lunch!  Setting out on the table for added decoration, I made faces of Sesame Street Characters out of fruits and vegetables.   Example:  Ernie was on an orange paper plate with cucumber eyes with olives in the middle, a tomato for a nose and a slice of cantelope for his smile.  I also added orange slices for the ears and black grapes for the hair.  I had individual toothpicks in the food for easy eating.  I also made an Elmo out of cherry tomatoes for the face, cucumbers with olives for the eyes, an orange slice for the nose and sliced grapes for the mouth.  It was a cute touch to a food table to tie it all in with the theme. 

TREAT BAGS:  I found some plastic food containers with silver lids at the dollar store that resembled a trash can.  I puffy painted on each trash can "C is for Caity" (or whatever their name was) with each child's name out of primary colors.  I found Oscar the Grouch cellophane treat bags at the party store which made great "liners" in my trash cans.  It looked like Oscar coming out of his can.  I filled the cans with bubbles, package of gummy worms (for Slimey the worm, Oscar's best friend.), Snuffy blowouts, Elmo fruitsnacks, Sesame Street stickers, crayons (Elmo's favorite thing!) and gave each child a homemade coloring book of Sesame Street Characters that I found on the PBS kids.org website.  The front of each childs book had the letter of their name with a Sesame Street character on it.  (Every letter of the alphabet has a coloring page on the website.)  They also got to take home all their "prizes" from the games.  Throughout the entire party I had Sesame Street music playing.  The party was a huge hit for kids and parents alike.  Parents had fun remembering when they used to watch Sesame Street and the kids loved all the activities.