Spongebob Party 3yr - Soak Plankton Game

INVITATIONS: I decided to do postcard invitations I figured they would be cheaper to mail too!  My sister is good at all that graphics design stuff so I had her make these for me.  I think I got this idea off of another party here anyways she found a picture of Spongebob and Patrick lounging on the beach.  She put that on the front and then in Spongebob font in red she put ALOHA! across the top left at an angle.  At the bottom right she put From Bikini Bottom.  Then on the other side she made this side look like a postcard.  She put a dividing line and put P O S T C A R D across the top in light light gray.  She also put Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?  Put a picture of SB and then Please join us in Bikini Bottom for (kid's name) 3rd Birthday Party! 

She put Destination-(address), Cast off-(date), Dive Time-(time) to Resurface-(time).  At the bottom she put To save a spot at the Krusty Krab, please call 555-5555   and then some other party info so that parents knew I was serving dinner and such.  This info was all on the right side and on the left side she just put TO: so that I could write in all the addresses and such.  These turned out AWESOME!  I had a LOT of people tell me how excited their kid(and them) have been for this party since receiving this invitation! 

DECORATIONS: I decided to turn my kitchen/dining room into the Krusty Krab.  I searched on the internet and found patterns for nautical flags and so out of construction paper I made several nautical flags.  I taped straws to the back at the top of each one and then strung these across the counter that holds the food.  This turned out so NEAT and only cost me the construction paper!  I turned our bathroom into Jellyfish Fields.  I made a bunch of signs out of cardboard that said things like BEWARE!  Jellyfish Fields, Mr. Krab's Money Pit (a game), Soak Plankton(another game), and Welcome to Bikini Bottom.  I painted the cardboard brown and made the signs look like they were on driftwood.  I just cut the ends of the planks at jagged edges and then just painted on the text.  These looked really neat!

For the bathroom of jellyfish fields, I hung up that sign and then also made some jellyfish out of balloons.  One of the best tips that I received on here was to just tie string in X's across the room and then either tie the balloons to the X's or tie the balloons so they hang down at different height from the X's.  This keeps them in the air without having to spend the money on helium balloons!!  For the balloon jellyfish, I just blew up pink balloons and hung them from different heights. I used scotch tape to attach 4-5 strips of pink crepe paper to the bottom of each balloon and then took a dark pink permanent marker and drew spots all over the balloons.  These turned out awesome and I had a TON of people, parents and kids compliment this! 

For other decorations I had some cardboard cutouts around the backyard of some of the characters.  My husband drew me up a Mr. Krabs, a Plankton, and a BIG Pineapple house(like SB's).  I got the cardboard at my place of work, but I've heard you can get big cardboard boxes from furniture/appliance stores too.  I just painted these up and they worked as decoration and also designated a few of the games.  To decorate the back room(dining room/living room that's off my kitchen) I just blew up a bunch of blue, light blue, and white balloons and tied them together and strung them around.  My sister also draped a string across the room and then made a wall of balloons by taking multiple strings and tying balloons all down that and then tying each string to the string that was draped across the room.  That's hard to describe, but it was REALLY neat. I also got some blue icicle lights on sale for $2 after xmas and hung these in the tree's outside.  It was a LOT of work but balloons I got pretty cheap and the rest of the decorations was just time consuming not really costly. 

The place ended up looking fantastic and was worth all the work to see my daughter's face!  I had a TON of people compliment on the signs, and decorations, and well, just everything.  I'm not usually a HUGE fan of all the decorating because, it's just THAT, decorations but it was worth it.  My daughter's face just lit up at everything!  Maybe my priorities will change the older she gets, but for her, the decorations(balloons) were one of the best parts of the party. 

FOOD:  I was going to do fish sticks and hotdogs(Plankton Planks), but decided to just do hamburgers and hotdogs because ground beef went on sale for $2 a lb right before her birthday!  So the menu consisted of Crabby Patties(hamburgers) and Plankton Planks(hotdogs) with all the fixins.  I also had Mr. Krab's hot crab dip with crackers, Baked beans, veggies and dip, Coral chips(potato chips), Mrs. Puff's goldfish crackers, Snail food(puppy chow that I put in a new and washed dog fish bowl, with Gary the Snail looking on). 

I also made sea-foam cups.  I made about 3 packs of blue jello in a 9 x 13 dish.  Then I made a big batch of jello whip(using blue jello and coolwhip).  After this was all set, I scooped a little bit of the jello into the bottom of a single serving cup, a little bit of the jello whip, and then a dollop of coolwhip on top.  Punch was blue Hawaiian punch with 7-up.  I didn't do anything TOO extreme for the cake.  My mom made a cake that looked like spongebob(all over the internet) and then had cupcakes that were jellyfish(pink frostning with dark pink spots and twizzlers legs).  I know this was a lot of food, but I invited quite a few adults that are friends/family and I wanted them to have a good meal.  

GAMES:  I had 5 games in mind.  I had about 10 kids with ages ranging from 3-13 to think about.  Okay, so the first game was Soak Plankton.  I had a big cardboard cutout of Plankton and I had the kids throw water balloons at him to Soak Plankton.  I was going to give each kid 5 water balloons and after they hit him(if they didn't soak him by the first or second balloon, I let them get closer), they each got a sticker.  There was one balloon that had blue food coloring in it the person with this balloon got a gold coin*(for a special prize at the end).  Okay, this game didn't turn out the greatest, because I forgot to pick up water balloons and so at the last minute, couldn't FIND water balloons and had to use regular balloons.  So, the balloons wouldn't break.  Also, maintaining control over the kids was tougher than I thought and I got so worried that someone was going to get hit with the blue water balloon, that I ended this game fast.

 The second game was Mr. Krab's Money Pit.  For this I just put a bunch of pennies/nickels into my daughter's sandbox.  I also put some seashells and ONE gold coin*.  I had baggies prepared and a sandbox sifter.  I had the youngest kids go first and set a time limit of 2 minutes to dig for money.  Again, the older kids had to do this blindfolded. 

The third game was Jellyfish Fishing  I had a really shallow kiddie pool filled with water.  I made up about 15 or so jellyfish out of small pink balloons(I put a little bit of water in these), and then tied that iridescent ribbon to the end and curled it.  Each kid had to catch one jellyfish with a fishing net(I bought a new one).  After they caught one jellyfish they got some Jellyfish jelly(I made homemade jelly in baby food jars and labeled it Jellyfish jelly-to also be used for favors for the adults). 

The fourth game was Fishing.  I bought a HUGE thing of blue material at the thrift shop for $2 and I cut out fish/under the sea cutouts out of construction paper and taped these to the material.  I had some cardboard leftover so I created like a barrier deal and put the material over this.  Then I had someone behind the sea to clip prizes onto the lines as kids fished.  I had some really small sets of playing cards that each person got.  I put these into baggies.  I also had ONE baggie that had a gold coin* with the playing cards.  This was by far the biggest hit, and turned out the best.  The last game was a Spongebob Pinata.  My husband's parents bought us a LOT of things for this party including all the plates/cups/etc.  They also found this pinata and said they couldn't pass it up.  So, I filled it with gummy crabby patties, sweetarts, and some other candy.  This pinata was the kind that you pulled the strings, so I just let the kids do that.   

Everyone that got a gold coin ended up getting a Crabby Patty game that I made up.  The game just has all the components to make a crabby patty.  I had a friend print me off buns, burgers, lettuce, cheese, etc.  I cut them all out and used clear contact paper to laminate them.  I put everything into baggies. She also printed me off a grill and 4 placemats.  I included 2 dice, a spatula, and my made up instructions on how to play.  Basically the game is like cootie where you roll the dice, if you get a 1, then you get a bottom bun.  If you get a 2, then you get to put your pattie on the grill.  Etc.  The concept is just basically the first person to build a crabby patty, wins.  So anyways, I packaged these all up and had 3 games to give out(my daughter got one of her own). 

I like to have something for all of the adults that attend.  We have a lot of family and friends that show up for her birthday.  I made up 3 plates of pina colada muffins to hand out as door prizes.  I just walked around and had all of the adults put their name on a piece of paper.  The one's that asked what it was for got told that I was selecting a clean up crew!  Haha!  Anyways I had my daughter draw 3 names out, and those adults go to take home the muffins.  Every adult also got a baby food jar of home-made jellyfish(grape) jelly to take home. 

The kids goody bags included spongebob snacks, a blue kool-aid cooler, some crayons, and a home-made Spongebob coloring book(just pages I printed of the internet and put together between construction paper).  I just know that this party was a huge overall success and I had a LOT of compliments a lot from people that have never been to such a neat party.  Thank you for this site!!!