Wild Kratts Birthday Party
My 6 year old son is a HUGE fan of the Kratt Brothers. Chris and Martin Kratt are brothers who created a television program aimed at educating children in biology and ecology. They have a show on PBS called Wild Kratts. My son often speaks of the Kratt brothers and he brings home writing assignments sharing how he wants to be an animal biologist and work with the Kratt brothers some day.
I made Wild Kratts the theme for Boogie's 6th birthday. I was having trouble coming up with some ideas until I looked on Pinterest. Are you on Pinterest? It's become my #1 "go-to" for birthday party ideas. Thank goodness! Piecing ideas from various websites and blogs I created a Wild Kratt party that Boogie and his friends went wild over.
I dusted off my mom's old Kenmore sewing machine about a week and a half ago and committed to making 10 Wild Kratt t-shirts. I wanted to make vests, but the price of the felt was way more than I was willing to spend. Fortunately, a local crafts store was having a sale on t-shirts and I was able to make the "creature power suits" for a lot less than I originally thought. Now, my sewing isn't great, but it doesn't seem like anyone noticed. I made the design using felt I found at the craft store. I was able to make two t-shirts worth of designs out of one piece of felt. Awesome!
After making the trademark paw on the t-shirts, I glued a bit of velcro to the main paw and made creature power discs that I could velcro on the front front of the shirt depending which animal we were featuring. With a bit of card stock, clear contact paper (left over from all that elementary school teaching I did back in the day!), and a printer I was able to print out creature power discs. And to give credit where credit is due, this is the site where I was able to get the creature power discs.
I made cheetah tails using leopard print duct tape from the craft's store. I just doubled up the tape and we had the kids place the top part of their cheetah tail in a back pocket to play a little cheetah tail tag. Think flag football without the football. We had kids running around trying to pull each other's tails. Loads of fun and a little bit silly.
We played "platypus egg hunt" and I hid candy filled plastic eggs in the backyard. Afterwards the kids played "platypus egg race" by putting plastic eggs on top of spoons held in their mouths. They had to race around on a course and drop their eggs in a basket without using their hands. Again, silly but a lot of fun.
We made beaver dams out of pretzel rods and chocolate frosting. No pictures, because watching my son eat like a beaver just ended up being super gross. But again, loads of fun.
I made a pull apart cupcake cake shaped as a turtle. My decorating needs work. It didn't help that the red gel frosting pen I used didn't set and it looked like my turtle was bleeding from it's mouth. Oh, well. Nobody noticed or were too kind to say anything and I have to stay doing the cupcake cake was totally the way to go. No cutting slices for the kiddos. They each got a cupcake and they were happy.
We ended with kids answering animal trivia questions in order to earn their next creature power disc. I loved putting this party together for my son. I was able to use my crafty side and make shirts that I never thought I would make in a million years. Another benefit of being a stay-at-home mom. I have time to pull together my creative ideas and make them work! It did my heart good to see Boogie's friends wearing their creature power shirts to school this week and hear them talking about creature powers and the fun they had. Yay! Boogie loved his party and I was so happy to pull it together for him.
