Just for fun, and as a kick off for our homeschool “under the sea” unit, I decided to throw together a little party. We invited a few friends at the last minute, which only added to the fun and it was a great day.
Sensory bin: rice (easier clean up than sand), seashells, various undersea creatures, colourful seashell beads, glass rocks
Obviously, I wasn’t going to buy 20 bags of Goldfish crackers to fill the pail with, so I stuffed the pail with plastic grocery bags to almost the top and then added the fish crackers. The popcorn represented coral. The goggles and seashell necklaces we had around the house. The blow-up fish and octopus I found for .99 cents each at Michael’s. I found the cutest seashell cupcake liners and filled them with guppies (candy). That was about the extent of my decorating other than the Finding Nemo cups, plates, napkin, bowls, and placemats that I happened to have in the storage room anyway. I had planned the day already and was in the midst of setting things out the night before when I remembered that years earlier, I had bought a Finding Nemo party set for $9.99 that was still in the storage room!
- various fish shaped fruit snacks
- octopus chicken hot dog
- applesauce ocean w/ blue whale swimming
- goldfish crackers
- shark and fish cheese
- crab seashell pasta salad
These cupcakes were super easy to decorate. I just iced them with buttercream icing tinted blue, added a pretzel stick fishing rod and a candy fish, then drew the fishing line with edible markers. White icing would have looked better for the fishing line though.
To make things go as smoothly as possible, I made up the craft table ahead of time with the glue, scissors, paint, paintbrushes, googly eyes, toilet paper rolls, tissue paper strips I had cut out, and jellyfish bodies my boys had cut out.
To make the octopus craft, make slits all the way around a toilet paper roll about halfway up. Curl each one around a thick marker or your finger. Paint it blue, including underneath the “arms”. Allow to dry and then decorate with googly eyes, bingo dabbers, paint, or clay.
To make the jellyfish craft, cut the body shape out of construction paper and tape or glue strips of tissue paper to the bottom. (when we cut out the body shapes, we used scalloped scissors along the bottom) Decorate by glueing googly eyes and making spots with Bingo dabbers or paint.
The crafts were the biggest hit of the party. Even the youngest kids (2 and 3 years old) enjoyed making these.
I sent each of the kids home with a little bag of just a few things including more seashell beads, a stencil, ring, and sea life grow creature. I got a pack of 12 ocean themed stencils for .99 cents at Michael’s.
Here are some more pictures of how the day went. There were 14 kids there and no major mishaps, so that qualifies as a big success with me!
If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book. 