Wizard of Oz Party -7yr- Munchkin Bingo

For my daughter's 7th birthday last week we had a Wizard of Oz party.

INVITATION: I made the invitations using sky colored paper, cutting a green rolling hill across the bottom and adding a yellow brick road along the middle. I then added character stickers. I tied a blue gingham bow at the top and printed the words on the sky paper. The children were invited to dress as their favorite character from the movie. We had the party at noon so we could serve lunch. 

DECORATIONS AND COSTUMES: I decorated the house like the Emerald City with green table cloths and a green banner I made that said Happy Birthday. My older children, my husband, and I dressed in green.  (perfect timing with all the St. Patrick's Day stuff out) We found green suspenders, weird hats, glittery glasses, and even green boas. We looked pretty goofy. The birthday girl was Dorothy and our youngest daughter was a munchkin from the Lullaby League. She wore a tutu and I found a felt princess hat that looked just like the cone hats they wear in the movie. I made a sign for the front door that said Bell Out of Order we took their picture with Glinda and my daughter.

FAVORS: Before their picture with my daughter we handed them their favor baskets which we filled with goodies after each game. (see each game for the coordinating favors)  I bought cute little baskets from Oriental Trading Company and cut blue gingham fabric for the insides. The cutest part was the tags with their names on them. I cut Toto dogs (scottie dogs from Cricut Animal Kingdom cartridge) and then added their names to the tags. 

GAMES : We played lots of games. While we waited for everyone to arrive the kids completed Wizard of Oz mazes I printed from the internet. When all the guests had arrived we played Glinda's Follow the Yellow Brick Road Game. I printed pictures of the characters and attached them to yellow paper. We put the papers in a circle on the floor and when the music (Wizard of Oz soundtrack) started the kids walked from brick to brick (paper to paper). When the music stopped the person on Glinda received a sticker. At the end of the game the kids were given "Glinda's Magic Bubbles" which were wedding bubbles I bought at the craft store and I decorated labels for them.

The next stop was to visit the munchkins. We played munchkin bingo. I found a website that will let you enter words or phrases and turns them into bingo cards. It keeps scrambling the words so you can print out the different cards. At the end of the game they received rainbow swirled lollipops.

For the scarecrow's game we played memory. I made the game on a piece of poster board. I divided the board into 28 rectangles using a pencil and then drew things associated with the movie such as shoes for Dorothy an axe for Tin Man etc. Then I cut different colored green rectangles to cover the pictures and added numbers 1 - 28. I taped them on. When we played the game the children sat on the floor and said "Show me number 4 and number 20." We showed them the pair. If they were right we tore off the green papers and they earned a Smartie pack of candy. If wrong the next player takes a turn to get a matching pair.At the end all children were given Smarties from the Scarecrow.   For the Tin Man's game I bought a heart bean bag toss game from Oriental Trading Company. It was made for Valentine's day so their were hearts on the board already. I added a picture of the Tin Man.  The kids got chocolate hearts that were covered in red tinfoil after each turn.

The Lion's game was our favorite. We did an interactive story play. I made character paper dolls and then wrote a very condensed version of the movie. Each child was given a character doll to hold. Before we started we made up phrases for each of the characters so that when that character was mentioned in the story the child would hold up their doll and the audience and all the other kids would say the phrase. For example every time the name Dorothy was mentioned in the story the child would hold up the doll and we would all say "There's no place like home!" and every time Toto was mentioned we would all say "Ruff ruff!" The other character phrases were Scarecrow = "If I only had a brain" Tin Man = "If I only had a heart" Lion = "Lions and tigers and bears oh my!" Glinda "Just follow the yellow brick road"  Wicked Witch "I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too!"  Wizard " I am Oz the great and powerful!"  It was a little hard to remember the phrases at first but they got the hang of it and the parents and grandparents got to participate as well.

After this game the kids received a medal of bravery for showing courage during the play.  Our final game was the Wizard game. We tied helium ballons to green cups and the kids added Cheerios to try to make the balloons float without falling on the floor and not hitting the ceiling.  At the end of this game the kids got "There's No Place Like Home" bracelets I found on the internet.

FOOD:  We continued the theme for the food. We had Glindas' Pband J Wandwiches which were star shaped sandwiches with pretzel sticks in them. We had meats and cheeses for the adults to make their own sandwiches. We served Dorothy's Rainbow Fruit Kabobs which were a huge hit. We used strawberries cantelope pineapples green grapes blueberries and purple grapes. We laid them on a platter in a rainbow shape. The kids kept going back for more.

I also made fruit dip to go with them which was made from vanilla yogurt and vanilla pudding mix. I added rainbow sprinkles on the top for fun. We served Scarecrow's vegetable platter and Lion's animal crackers. For the Tin Man we served "If I only had a heart to clog chips". I had signs by all the food.  For punch we made the green sherbet and sprite punch that foams up and I made a black witch hat to float on top since I couldn't find a plastic witch hat this time of year. 

CAKE:  For the cake I bought a white sheet cake and then decorated it myself. I've learned that this is an easy way to personalize the cake without all the stress of baking and frosting the cake the night before when I am usually busy pulling everything together. To decorate the cake I used tubes of frosting and made a yellow brick road in the center and took a toothpick across the frosting to make it look like individual bricks then I added red flowers and green vines on either side of the road. I placed Dorothy Tin Man Scarecrow and Lion on the brick road (which were figurines I've had for years) and wrote Happy Birthday at the bottom of the road.  It was a great party for the whole family. Many of the children dressed in costumes and even some of the adults. I hope our youngest will want an Oz party someday so we can do it all again.  "