Teddy Bear Picnic -3yr- Decorate Teddy Cookies

Teddy Bear Picnic  For my daughter’s 3rd birthday, we had a Teddy Bear Picnic at our home.  A teddy bear cookie cutter was a great resource for everything I did for this party! 

Invitations:  I made the invitations very simply, but they turned out really cute.  I bought plain red cards at Michael’s and red and white checked scrapbook paper.  I printed the text of the cards on the computer (inviting the child and their favorite bear), and then on the front of the invitation I glued a square of the red and white checked paper, then I cut a teddy bear out of brown construction paper using a teddy bear shaped cookie cutter as my stencil, and glued the bear on the red and white checked blanket and glued a red bow to his neck. 

Activities:  When each child arrived, they were given a gift bag to decorate.  The gift bags were red and white checked gift bags (purchased from the craft section at Wal-Mart) and I had glued a plain brown bear in the middle of one side of each bag (again, I used the cookie cutter as a stencil, and then enlarged the size of the bear a little bit on a copy machine). 

Each child was given a glue stick, google eyes and a brown pom pom (for the bear’s nose), and I had cut out a variety of dresses, shorts, t-shirts, purses, bows (to be used as bow ties for boy bears and hair ribbons for girl bears) from scrap fabric I had on hand.  I also had some sports patterned material that I cut footballs and soccer balls out of for boy bears.  The kids had a lot of fun dressing their bears, and the skill level was just right for their age (although my 7 year old had fun with it too!) 

Once they had dressed their bears, the kids went on a bear hunt.  I cut bears out of construction paper (again using the bear cookie cutter as a stencil), and we hid them around the backyard.  The kids used their newly decorated bags to collect the bears they found.  Once they were done hunting bears, they traded in the paper bears they had found for goodies to fill their bags. 

The goodies included teddy bear coloring books, Winnie the Pooh stickers, Winnie the Pooh fruit snacks, Teddy Grahams, Teddy Graham Bearwiches and a copy of the Teddy Bear Picnic poem (which I found on the Internet). 

For the next activity, the kids painted teddy bear sugar cookies.  Before the party I used my teddy bear cookie cutter and made undecorated teddy bear sugar cookies.  Each child was given a paper plate with a teddy bear cookie, a paint brush (purchased at a dollar store) and 3 colors of paint.  The paint was light Karo syrup colored with food coloring.  To keep the colors from running together on the plate, I used a cake decorating tube and canned chocolate frosting to draw 3 empty circles on the plate (like an artist’s palate). 

I let the chocolate frosting dry for a couple of hours before pouring the different colored paints into the center of each circle.  The kids loved this activity (and the moms joined in too!) and they all wanted to paint (and eat!) more than one bear.  Each bear that came to the party was given a ribbon (I found and printed the ribbons from Clips On Line on the Internet) for an appropriate reason (best loved, fuzziest, etc.) 

Decorations:  the partyware was all solid red, and I found red and white checked napkins at Michael’s.  The tables were covered with red and white checked picnic table cloths. I hung some bears around the house (again, cut from construction paper using the cookie cutter as a stencil) and I bought teddy bear mylar balloons at a dollar store.  The cake was a picture of a bear sitting on a red and white checked blanket (ordered from a bakery). 

Food:  I tried to stick to picnic type foods that are favorites of my daughter.  We had hot dogs or grilled chicken, buns or rolls, baked beans, chips and dips, a fruit tray and a vegetable tray.