Rainbow Unicorn Birthday Party

Honey Pot and Sweet E's birthdays are just a week apart. With family traveling in from out of town, we decided to have them share their themed party this year. Honey Pot first had some friends join her at a local skate park, then family followed us back home for this little celebration. Since unicorns are all the rage for young tweens, and Sweet E is obsessed with colors, this was the perfect shared theme for them!

Decorations

I had nearly every color of streamers leftover from other parties, so I made a simple rainbow background on the mantle, with some clouds that I cut out of poster board for a banner. I also scored this sweet rainbow unicorn balloon on clearance at Michaels.

Here are the birthday girls in their matching dresses that I found at Target. And there was a simple welcome sign taped to the door, but I didn't take a close-up pic of it.

Unicorn headbands for all! Found on Amazon.

The Food

Coming from the skate park, we kept the food pretty simple. I made a few things in advance, and we just ordered pizza for dinner. But here is a rainbow fruit platter I arranged.

Some homemade chocolate cake pops, which were to die for!! Recipe from my go-to baking blog, Sally's Baking Addiction.

And I also made a unicorn cake (don't tell, but I totally cheated with a box mix).

And have a look inside!

And you can't have a rainbow party without Skittles:

The plates and napkins were in theme, and I made water bottle labels.

Not pictured, we also had pizza and chips with dip.

The Party Activities

First, we had our classic balloon pop. There were rainbow unicorns hidden in four of the balloons. There was a tack taped behind each balloon, so the kids only had to throw bean bags at them to pop them.

Here is Honey Pot, mid-game.

Rainbow lollipops for the winners!

Pin the Horn on the Unicorn

I don't have pictures, but we purchased this set on Amazon that matched our theme.

Rainbow Color Throw

We participated in a Color Run several years ago, and it was just a ton of fun. I had the idea that the kids needed to get colorful during this party. So we provided a white tee shirt from Michaels for each of the kids. And they ran around the backyard, as the adults shot color powder at them with squeeze bottles. The kids had SO MUCH FUN getting messy and colorful. It was a bit chaotic, and the adults ended up covered in powder too, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. And, with so much leftover powder, we can! 90% of the powder brushed off of our clothes easily before we walked inside.

After the bottles had been emptied, we gave each of the kids a handful of powder, so we could do a color throw picture. I think I'll frame it. 💗

Thanks for looking at our latest party! It was small, but special. 😊

Learning about Purple!

Purple Discovery Bin

I filled a large bin with several purple things from around the house. Mostly toys, but a few other surprises as well. I wanted a variety of textures for Sweet E to explore, and opportunities for play along the way! As she plays with the items we talk not only about the color, but about what she's doing as well. It's a great way to build her vocabulary!

First up was this old magic wand from Honey Pot's toddler days. It has a button and makes magical noises when you swish it around!

And a toy from Little M&M too!

This was perhaps her favorite item in the bin! She loved opening the zipper...

and peeking inside! There was a purple necklace in there. She put it on and continued exploring the items.

Building with purple MagnaTiles!

Playing with purple Squigz on the window!

And snuggles with a little Easter bunny!

Then she gestured for me to close the blinds so we could turn on the stars!

We kept the bin out for the week, and she returned to it again and again.

Brushing bunny's fur!

This was another fun activity within the bin: opening her brother's PokeBall full of pom poms!

Opening and closing!

Grapes Do-a-Dot Art

I printed this image from the internet, and showed Sweet E how to dot inside the circles.

She did a great job!

Though, as usual, she had to hop onto the table to complete such a task!

Purple Bath

Next we had a purple bath, using a red and blue color tablet. We used several purple toys too!

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Then we took a two month break. 😂 We halted activities when Sweet E caught a cold. Then we were busy with birthday parties and weekends of traveling here and there. How did so much time pass?! It was finally time to finish up our color themes! After a few more purple activities, we finished with a super fun color review! Keep scrolling to see what we did!

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Purple Collage Crown

Purple is the color of royalty! So for this theme's craft Sweet E made a crown. I cut out the shape from cardstock, and gathered some purple items, including some flowers Sweet E helped me gather from the backyard!

This was her first time using school glue, and she loved it!

She squeezed and squeezed piles of this glue onto the crown!

We let it dry for a few hours.

Then I taped the two ends together. Ta-da!

Cutting Practice

I found Honey Pot's old pair of scissors, which happen to be purple. So I prepared a simple cutting activity for Sweet E. She's always so curious about her big sister and big brother's scissors in the craft caddy. She's so happy to have her very own pair now! Faithful Little Hands has a cute activity that I copied, where Sweet E would have to use her scissors to trim the hair! I also included some paper strips.

I showed her how to hold the scissors, and she was so happy to try!

She even asked for it again the next day before we began another activity!

Sorting Pom Poms by Size

For this activity I gathered purple pom poms in three sizes, and drew circles onto a piece of purple paper. Sweet E just had to sort them by size. This is a new concept for her!

When I asked if she could find the big pom poms, she grabbed them immediately. I then asked her to put them into the big circle, and she was able to do this with no problem! Then we continued with the other two sizes, but she's still getting used to the terms small and medium-sized!

She soon caught on!

Pom Pom One-to-One Correspondence

On the other side of the purple paper I drew open circles, and the numbers 1-3. 

She placed the pom poms onto the circles, and we counted them up together, pointing to each as we went! She's an eager little counter, though every number right now sounds like "three" 😄

Color Review #1 - Fine Motor

For our first color review I cut slits into an egg carton, and provided Sweet E with craft sticks in multiple colors. I showed her how to push them into the egg carton, and then she got to work doing the same!

Once she got started, she had a lot of fun!

She was so happy doing this, that she started to work with two hands at once!

And pulling them back out was fun too. As she pulled them out, she named each of their colors. She can say most of them pretty well!

Color Review #2 - Rainbow Spaghetti Sensory Bin

As Sweet E worked on her craft stick activity, I was busy boiling water and dying noodles for the final color activity. It was a big one! I cooked two boxes of spaghetti, and split them up into three bags each. Then I dropped in some olive oil and liquid watercolors. She helped me mix them up!

Then we laid them out to dry for a bit. But we were too impatient. Sweet E wanted to get started! I of course reminded her the noodles were not for eating, and that we were just playing with the noodles today.

So I scooped them all into a sensory bin, and laid it on the kitchen floor for her to play with!

I encouraged her to dig her hands in. We talked about the colors, and how the noodles felt!

Without further ado, she started to climb inside to let her feet squish around!

She. Loved. This.

When she stepped out, we mixed up the colors. Then she hopped back in, LOL. 

So much happiness! Though there was a lot of setup in making this activity happen, it was so worth it when I saw how much she enjoyed playing with it!

To extend the play, I brought out some of the toys from her play kitchen. She scooped some into her pot.

And pretended to eat!

Then she was about to run into the living room to put it on her stove, but I stopped her! She had olive oil feet, so I dragged the kitchen out to her!

After a few minutes cooking on the stove, she climbed back into the bin! 

This is where she started to twirl around, sliding her feet and laughing. She held onto the kitchen for support as she spun around.

Then when she tried to sit in the bin, so I helped her take her clothes off first.

When lunchtime loomed closer we finished up by singing the "Rainbow, Rainbow" song from the Mother Goose Club. And we made a rainbow or two. Then I cleaned her up, and wiped the floor clean too!

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Well, that finishes our color themes! It was so much fun! I feel confident that Sweet E knows all of her basic colors, and she can even say most of them when asked. Looking forward to continuing tot school with her! Stay tuned!