Winnie the Pooh -3yr- Pooh's Bean Bag Toss

Winnie the Pooh - 3 year old  My daughter absolutely loves Winnie the Pooh and decided weeks before her birthday that she wanted to have a Pooh party. 

We made the invitations from pastel colored cardstock. On the outside we cut out birthday cakes from cardstock and glued them to the front of the invitation which said "It's my 3rd birthday and I'm so excited, we're having a party and you are invited." (we got that poem from this website!!!) Then on the inside we wrote "Join me for pizza and yummy cake, we'll have lots of fun and celebrate" Then we added the info, time, date, etc.. For the party. Then I let my daughter decorate the invitations with Pooh stickers and glitter pens and we hand delivered the invitations.  We decorated the house with Winnie the Pooh balloons and an assortment of Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals from my daughters toy chest. Most of the party took place in our backyard. 

When the guests arrived they went outside to play on our playground or jump in the bounce house.  Once everyone was there we did a craft activity.  I had everyone sit at the picnic tables and we talked about Pooh's favorite food…honey!!!

Then we made some fake honey for the kids to play with.  I made the fake slime made out of water, glue and Borax and I added yellow food coloring to it.  The kids loved it!!!! First you mix 1 1/2 cups of warm water with 2 cups of glue and a few drops of yellow food coloring.  In a separate bowl you mix 4 teaspoons of Borax with 1 1/3 cups of warm water.  Next you pour the glue mixture into the Borax mixture and let the slime form.  Do not mix these 2 together, it just forms on it's own and then you lift it out of the bowl.  I used a big glass mixing bowl so the kids could see the slime forming and they thought this was so cool. The kids then played at the table for about 15 minutes with their "honey". 

Next we played a Winnie the Pooh bean bag game.  While my husband was getting the kids ready for that, I had the kids put their glob of honey into a ziploc bag which I had labeled with this saying "Thank you for coming to my party, I had a "hunny" of a time". I then placed each childs bag of honey into their goodie bags to take home.  For the bean bag game, I had printed off 3 pooh coloring pages from online.  My daughter helped me color them a few days before the party. We mounted them onto cardstock and attached them to small dowel rods.  Then I used 3 wicker baksets from around my house and stuck the dowel rods in it.  We lined the baskets up in the backyard and the kids took turns trying to toss the bean bags into each characters basket.  We had a pooh basket, an eeyore basket and a piglet basket. 

The kids all got pooh stickers for participating in the bean bag game and even lined up a 2nd and 3rd time to play again. Just in case we needed extra activities I put out a basket filled with our collection of winnie the pooh books if any of the kids wanted to look at them and I also put out a basket with crayons and pooh coloring books too. The kids were so busy playing with their "honey" and doing the bean bag game that we ended up not needing the extra activites afterall, but it's good to have something extra planned, just in case! 

Next it was time for Pizza and juice boxes which were served on pooh plates.  Then we sang Happy Birthday and served the cupcakes.  WE made the cupcake decorations ourselves since I had a hard time finding pooh cupcake toppers.  I simply cut 1" squares from pastel cardstock and placed a pooh sticker on it. Then I just taped a toothpick to the back of the cardstock and stuck them into the cupcakes which were also decorated with sprinkles. 

The cupcakes were much easier to handle and pass out then trying to cut cake and serve. We just passed out a cupcake to each child and we were done!!!. Then we moved inside to open presents.  I had the children sit in a circle and my daughter sat in a special birthday chair around her.  I had a paper bag which was filled with papers with each childs name on it and my daughter would just pull a name out of the bag. Whoever's name she pulled out would bring their gift to her and sit with her while she opened it. This helped to control the frenzy of gift opening that can sometimes happen. 

After we opened all of the presents we did a balloon drop. I purchased enough punching balloons for each child. We inflated them and stuffed them into a large lawn and garden garbage bag.  My husband had used ribbon to hang it up on the ceiling fan and then made an opening at the bottom with a ribbon attached. When my daughter finished opening presents I told the kids to stay seated for a special surprise. On the count of 3 we would yell "Happy Birthday". Then I counted to 3, the kids yelled out Happy Birthday, my husband yanked on the ribbon to the ballon bag which then opened up  and the kids were showered with a colorful assortment of punching balloons that they got to take home along with their goody bags. This worked much better then a pinata and the kids really loved it too. 

For the goody bags I just used brown lunch bags and wrote "hunny" on the outside to look like a honey pot.  I filled them with a Pooh coloring book and Markers which I got at michaels for $1.00 each. I also put, a bag of pooh gummies, a bag of Teddy Grahams, a sheet of pooh stickers and their bag of "honey" inside of the goody bag and then put yellow tissue sticking out of the top to look like the honey.

We made the thank you notes out of cardstock which my daughter also decorated with ribbon, pooh stickers and glitter.  I printed some pooh coloring pages from online and mounted them to cardstock.  On the back of the mounted coloring page I put a small strip of self adhesive magnet.  WE attached the thank you note to the coloring page and then the guests not only got a thank you note, but a picture to color which could instantly be placed on their refrigerator to help them remember my daughters party. We hand delivered the thank you notes a few days after the party and everyone said they had a wonderful time, my daughter is still talking about her party and says she wants another pooh party next year when she turns 4!!!