Make, Jane, make!: Superhero Birthday Party, Take 2

My second born turned five recently (sniff, sniff) and requested a superhero party to celebrate. Having learned some things from the first time around, I resolved to make this superhero party a little easier to manage.

The first challenge was keeping the guest list small. Helping my son choose which friends to include and exclude was difficult since he is still forming friendships and wanted to invite almost all of his kindergarten class... of 27 children! We ended up inviting five friends from class and three friends from outside of school, which gave us a good mix of girls to boys and older children to younger children.

The second challenge was devising a schedule that the children would enjoy and keep the party from degenerating into free play which is waaay too hard for me to handle nowadays. What with our household of ever-increasing children and ever-aging mommy.

My final challenge was convincing myself to not take on too much. Dear hubby has been good about reminding me to not get so much on my plate that I can't enjoy the meal because I'm rushing to finish it before the restaurant closes. So I made a contract with myself that I would only commit to making the superhero capes and all other items like the cake, snacks, and decorations would be bought from the store.

And you know what? We had so much fun! I'm really glad that I didn't overtask myself and hubby with an unnecessarily complicated party. A little bit of forethought and restraint really paid off. Now if only I could apply that clear-headed thinking to everything in my life...

Anyway, back to the party:

The kids had to complete three superhero tests to win badges and eventually earn their superhero capes which they then decorated. There were feats of strength (bean bag toss), speed (cup stacking), and wits (sneaky mommy printed out some superhero worksheets from this great website).

After each of the tests the kids received a badge to signify their mastery.

All the games went so smoothly and the credit is due totally to the children. My son's friends were a great group of kids who were enthusiastic and eager to try everything. Guess which task the kids seemed to enjoy the most? (Check out the impossibly cute picture below).

I had a hard time convincing them that they had all won the super genius badges and could stop colouring. Will it ever happen again where I have to bargain with children to stop doing their worksheet and come have a snack? This moment definitely deserved to be immortalized with a picture.

After snack time, the kids decorated capes their capes with fabric markers. I loved the creativity that some of the kids brought to their work. I was particularly amazed at this little masterpiece that was eventually filled in with a mosaic of colours and reminded me of abstract stained glass. (I'm sure there's a fancy art term for that). Wish I had remembered to take a picture of the finished product.