Craft Jr. » carboard boxes

Summer Birthday Party Games

Wendy Piersall — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:10:35 +0000

With summer finally here, plenty of birthday parties are underfoot. I myself have been trying to figure out how to impress my almost 7 year old daughter next month with some cool birthday theme like this incredibly cute Goldilocks and the Three Bears birthday party. I honestly don’t know that I can outdo that one, though. :)

Classic Summer Party Games

These birthday party games are easy and fast, and popular no matter how many times we play them!

Water Balloon Toss

Pair up kids and have them stand in two lines, facing their partners. Have them toss the water balloons back and forth, having the kids take a step backwards after each turn. The last pair with an unbroken water balloon wins!

Bubbles

Not really a game, but an old standby that children love. You can also get creative and make bubble wands from plastic-coated coat hangers in various shapes and sizes.

Jump Rope H20

Have children jump rope while holding a paper or plastic cup of water with their teeth. The kid with the most water in their cup at the end wins.

Toilet Paper Races

Split the children into teams of at least 5-7 people. Have them sit in a line all facing towards the front. Give the first child the end of a roll of toilet paper, and have them pass back the roll to their ‘team’. If the toilet paper breaks, they have to start over. The first team t get to the end of their line with an unbroken length of toilet paper wins!

Easy Summer Party Games

Pick a Duck

Buy a collection of cheap rubber ducks and fill up a kiddy pool or large tub with water. Write numbers on the bottom of the ducks and let the children pick them out of the water. Their prizes are given to them based on the numbers on the bottoms of their ducks.

Limbo

Use a broom or section of PVC pipe and put on some silly music. The children need to go under the stick bent over back wards, tummy first. Gradually lower the stick, and as children fall down trying, they are eliminated. The last one to get through the lowest limbo stick height wins.

Musical Inner Tubes

Play this like musical chairs, but the kids need to stand in the middle of a blown up inner tube (you can find these really cheap at your local dollar store). If you’re really lucky, you can find inner tubes to match the theme of your party!

Croquet

Split children into teams and play croquet. You have have them take turns at each arch (faster) or give them all a chance to play each arch (slower).

Summer Party Games to Make

Instructions on how to make these great outdoor party games or carnival games.


Make a Bozo Bucket Toss Game	Make a Fishing Booth Game	Make a Bean Bag Toss Game	Make a Ring Toss Party Game

Bean Bag Toss and Ring Toss Summer Party Games


Butterfly Bean Bag Toss Game	Grand Slam Baseball Game Stand-Up	Clown Ball Toss Game	Airblown Castle Ring Toss Game

Also check out our circus crafts and party printables, and also our watermelon recipes and watermelon carving ideas!

Recycled Crafts: Make Aliens & Monsters from Carboard Boxes

Wendy Piersall — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:17:26 +0000

Earth Day week is almost over, and I’m almost out of recycled craft ideas (for now!). I have been doing a lot of crafts with tissue paper lately, which means I have had a crapload of tissue paper scraps to throw away. I always hate doing that, because I know you can do cool stuff with small pieces of tissue paper, but it’s incredibly impractical to save them after a craft project.

Until I come up with a cool tissue paper saving system, I figured I should do something with the scraps right away, because, you know, it’s not really the right week to throw things away like that! So I had already set aside my kids’ raisin boxes and Jello boxes, and I needed a craft to post on Space Jr. because I haven’t done any there yet, so making aliens was the logical solution!

You can totally make these cardboard box aliens without tissue paper scraps and without the mess of decoupage. Just use paint instead.

What You Need to Make this Easy Alien Craft for Kids

Jello, raisin, or other small empty carboard boxes
Pipe cleaners for the antennae and legs
Googly eyes
Tissue paper scraps
Wire cutters
Decoupage glue
Glitter glue (optional)

How to Make this Easy Alien Craft for Kids

First cover the boxes with the glue and tissue paper. Lay down a thin layer of glue with a paint brush, then lay down the tissue paper, then cover it with another layer of glue. The silver alien used scraps of silver tissue paper, which is very opaque compared to regular tissue paper so I only needed one layer of it. With the purple monster, I had to use about 4 layers of purple tissue paper to ensure you couldn’t see the artwork on the food boxes.

I then added some cut circle scraps from this decoupage project for the eyes, and found some other colored triangles or rectangles to make the mouths. These I glued on just like the rest of the tissue paper.

After the decoupage is dry, use a razor blade to cut four tiny x’s into the bottom of the box, and two tiny x’s in the top as shown. This is where you will insert the antennae and legs.

Cut two pieces of pipe cleaner for the antennae, and three to four for the legs. It was a bit easier to make them stand up on their own with more legs.

To make the spiral antennae, wrap the pipe cleaners around a pencil or paint brush, then pull it off.

Make tiny feet by simply bending the pip cleaners into an oval on the ends.

Then simply stick the ends of the pipe cleaners into the tiny slits you cut with the razor blade.

All that’s left to do is glue on your googly eyes. This is optional too, because you could just as easily decoupage or paint on the eyes. I wanted to use glitter glue to make them, well, more alien-y. I also used two different sized eyes, because I thought it was cuter that way!

If you’re really into aliens & monsters, you’d probably also like these robot alien coloring pages and these fuzzy monster coloring pages, too!