Around the world -7yr- Globe Cake

Around the World Birthday party  

INVITATION printed out on card stock to look like an airline ticket.  We used the name Birthday Airlines and created a logo. Birthday Airlines where 7 is our favorite number.  We included departure time, gate location (our house) and confirm your seservations at our number. At the door I ordered a big airplane balloon.  Good Idea to call a week in advance so the balloon company can special order the balloon.

ACTIVITIES/DECORATIONS: We set up an airport waiting room in our living room.  My birthday boy and I greeted passengers and my older son (10 years old) was sitting behind a table creating our passports.  We created passports out of blue construction paper with gold letters and an American flag sticker before the party.  We took a Polaroid picture of each child and taped it to the inside cover of the passport.  Then I had them put their name on a suitcase, which was really a handled paper bag.  We had a sign gate 7 at the top of the stairs to our playroom.  Because the party was in January.  We used the garage and playroom.  It took some time and energy to clean out these areas but I did it and it worked perfectly.  

When everyone arrived my older son put on a captain's hat and a moustache, he had the hand held walkie-talkie, which he used for a microphone, and he led the children to the plane.  Down in the playroom we made a plane by putting plastic tablecloths on the floor and lining up enough white plastic chairs along either side to create an aisle for the plane.  We looped crate paper streamers along the outside the chairs so it would feel like sides.  My older son and I created a short speech for him to say between each stop on our journey. Thank you for flying Birthday Airlines where 7 is our favorite number.  Our first trip is to.....your flight crew today will be Mom and Aunt Marilyn.  We will be flying at an altitude of 

Since the party was after school before landing at our first destination of Ireland, we gave out a bag of goldfish and a bottle of water.  We collected the trash and let pilot land the plane and lead the children through a paper tunnel to the garage or through the front of the plane over to the other side of the playroom.  Each country we visited had a painted flag, and a flag sticker for their suitcase.  Each country also had a game and prize for them to take home.  

Our stops:

1.Ireland we painted a rainbow and I got chocolate gold coins and put them in a black plastic pot.  We played a potato race game where everyone balanced a potato on a spoon across the garage and back.  Everyone won! And got some gold from the Leprechaun's pot.  We handed out the Ireland Flag Sticker and re-boarded the plane.  

2.France we had a tour France game.  I just got all the baseball hats in our house.  I had 2 volunteers sit at one side of the room and the rest line up in teams on the other.  We stacked all the hats up on the volunteer's heads and one at time team members raced over and got one hat and then crawled back then the next went until all the hats were gone.  I had on a beret.  We painted an Eiffel Tower and the prize was a small Eiffel town key chain from the dollar store.  

3.Africa we blew up lost of balloons and inside some of the balloons was small rubber safari animal finger puppets.  We talked about the climate in Africa and animals we might see there.  I got a safari hat to wear.  

4.China we had chops sticks and the game was to put, as many red gummy fish from the big bowl into you own bowl.  The prizes were the red fish (which we put into a plastic baggies) plus the chopsticks and then we gave out a fortune cookie.  We decorated with paper lanterns and a paper dragon. 

5.Australia we talked about the seasonal differences with our own country and the types of animals we would see there.  We played the kangaroo hop which was take a beach ball (it looked like the globe) and place it between your knees then hop across the garage and back.  For a prize I ordered Koala bears that clip on.  

6.Hawaii was our next stop where we played Aloha Hop and gave out Hawaiian Lei's.  Decorations included Hi state flag as well as our national flag.  

7.Our final stop was Mexico where of course children celebrated with a pinata.  I only use the pull string pinatas, as I do not relish the idea of giving a bunch of 7-year boys a bat to swing freely.  I decorated Mexico with paper flowers and wore a sombrero.   Upon our final return to our airplane we sang Happy Birthday, as it is the theme song of Birthday Airlines. 

We had a globe shaped cake frosted in ocean blue and had the green continents frosted on it.  My aunt made tiny flags on toothpicks for each of the countries we visited and she took a wooden skewer and attached a small plastic plane to it.  It looked like the plane was flying over the world.  Since we were having family for dinner to celebrate later, we saved the globe cake and served the children small boxes (just like the airlines) inside each box was a cupcake with BA on the top for birthday airlines, a hoodsie, napkin and plastic spoon.  We handed out more water and juice. The children ate and went home.   This web site is the best!!!  

Thank you to all the other Around the World parties on this site, you have all inspired me and helped make our party a success.   My boys just switched schools and the children from their old school were calling to see what the theme was this year.  Thanks to everyone who helped with this party.  Hope someone else gets some ideas/inspiration from our party.   I ordered all my hats, a lot of games and prizes from Oriental Trading Company.  A visit to the dollar store is always helpful too.