Recycled Toys and Ideas for A Polka Dot Party!

My 11-year-old came up with this theme for her party ~

A Polka Dot Party!

Image via Wikipedia

With dots in mind we decided to play with ideas of all things…

round

and colourful …

even for food

and decor

and activities.

We took our fun party and joined another large homeschooling family for the fun-filled Polka Dot Party!

Ice-breakers

Polka Dot Cooties

The girls created several cooties with polka dots on the top.They moved around the group taking turns to play.

Inside were simple fun choices with even more funny activities or actions for the last choice.

Scavenger Hunt

I created a coloured dot scavenger hunt list and wrote 8 things the children could find outside on the farm.

Each child had a small bag (to hold the items they collected).

Each child had 8 dot stickers to stick over the dot when they found the item.

This was a fun activity that got everyone running around and exploring!

Dotty Refreshments

Fruit Juice

Decorate each glass with a circle slice of fruit.

Place round ice-cubes made with fruit juice in different colours in each glass.

Or put  round melon balls in the fruit juice.

Ice cream cones

Instead of a birthday cake we gave everyone 2 scoops of ice-cream in a wafer cone.

Everyone decorated their ice cream with Smarties, Jelly Tots or Astros.

Fun ball games with some recycled 2l milk bottles, newspaper and scrap wool.

We cut the bottles to create a “racket” and a “bucket”.

We made the balls with a sheet of newspaper crumpled tightly in a ball and tied around with some yarn and knotted to end.

Colour or number the buckets.

Games with “rackets” and balls –

Each child had a ball attached to the handle of the milk bottle. They practiced tossing the ball up and catching the ball as it fell back down.

Next we pulled the ball off the string attached to the handle and each child chose a partner.  They tossed and caught the ball.

Once they mastered throwing and catching 1 ball between the partners, everyone took a ball and both partners tossed and caught each other’s balls at the count of 3!  FUN!

(The balls are quite soft and you don’t need too much space to play this.  We played on a small patch of lawn outside.)

Tossing balls in the “buckets” –

Arrange the buckets in 2 or 3 rows.  Let all the children toss their balls and score if the ball goes in.

Number the buckets and arrange them in 3’s with highest number in back rows to score.

Place the buckets on a table and let the children toss the balls to knock them off the table!

Paint a different colour on each bucket.  Call out a colour and see who can toss their ball into the correct bucket.

Other Ball, Dot and Circle Games:

Knock the Scarecrow’s Hat

Tie a broom to the back of a chair.

Place a hat over the top of the broom handle

Children toss their balls to knock the hat off the “scarecrow”!

Skittles

Make 10 skittles with recycled plastic bottle filled with sand.  (Paint them different colours.)

Arrange the bottles in a triangle.  Place a skipping rope/ hula hoop for the children’s mark and let them toss a large newspaper ball at the skittles.

Hula Hoop circle

All the children join hands and stand in a circle.

Mom opens the circle to place a hula hoop over the 1 child’s arm and then closes the circle again.

Now the children must move the hula hoop around the circle of children, over each child alternating over the head and under the feet without breaking the circle!

Ring Games

Ring – a Rosie (traditional game)

Murderer and Detective

Everyone sits with their eyes closed.  One child walks around the circle.  Everyone sings, “One tap detective, Two taps murderer.” The child walking around taps 1 child once and another child 2x on their head.  The detective (the child who tapped 1x) now sits in the middle of the circle.  He/she watches to see who the murderer is.

The murderer is the one who was tapped 2x.  He/ she WINKS secretly at anyone in the circle who looks at him/her.  The person who sees the wink rolls back groaning – killed!  They remain lying down.  The murderer continues to wink at anyone until he/she has killed the group and “wins” or until the detective sees or guesses who the murderer is.  The murderer now walks around the circle and game begins again.  If the detective cannot find the murderer, they are ‘out’ and cannot sit in the circle. (We let the child continue for fun.)

Click here for the party plan: Party Plan Polka Dot Party

Included in this download is the menu and food ideas, cootie details and other ideas.

I included the lyrics to the song “Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”.  Children could sing this while playing musical dress up/ while playing pool games …  so many more ideas …

Hope there is something fun here that you can use! 🙂