Nemo (Ocean) Themed Birthday Party

I have a new friend. Her name is Alina. I realized over coffee and cookies this past Sunday morning that Alina can throw one amazing birthday party! She just pulled off this Nemo themed party for her 4 year old here in our city. She put in a lot of work and it looks like it was amazing from all the pictures! So I'm having her guest post today about what she did! Maybe you can glean a few ideas for your own Nemo or Ocean/Underwater themed birthday party! 

The Invitation
Send out a message in a bottle with all the party details! 

Decorations

I had fun with this. It is so cheap to buy crepe paper in China. So I got a lot of that. I cut paper into strips to create water and seaweeds. Seaweeds were embracing the food table. I had several fun things on the table (I got those ideas from various internet pictures). One of them was "Catch of the Day" --went great with seaweed table. I also did some Nemo fish from balloons and paper mache (like a piñata).

The Games

Dory finds a map for finding her friend Blow Fish (who is a piñata guy). So Dori suggests the kids follow her to the ocean and promises kids that Blow Fish will blow lots of candy once he is found. 

(Alina made a map as the guide to find the Blow Fish with all the games and stops listed.) The map is helpful for leading the programme since each point of the map contains tips for the game adventure. This way the person acting as Dory doesn't need to remember what is next, but look at the Map with kids together. 

Here is the Map points/stops:

1. Be Ready To Travel. 

Bag with little toys, things in it. Kids put hand inside of the bag and have to guess what is the object. example: little bowl, lolly pop, pencil, etc

2. Only Sea Animals Allowed To Travel Under The Water

So next game is: every kid thinks of a sea animal. Then Dory and other kids tries to guess which animal is it.

3. What Colour animal are You? 

Show different colors and ask kids if they have this color on them, if they have it, clap for them. 

4.Uh-Oh Jelly fish trek 

Hold homemade JellyFish or fix the crepe paper in the hall and ask kids come through without touching it.  If they touch a jellyfish, the rest of the kids have to shout STING. You could do a craft and have the kids make their own jelly fish.

5. Oh No

Nemo got lost! Blind-folded kid has to find a paper Nemo fish by following other kids hints. If it is close to the fish kids say Hot if it is far kids say Cold. 

6. Celebrate Nemo is found!

At this point organize some songs, so kids can enjoy songs with actions!

7. Wow  Fast Stream

Here divide kids into two teams (organize them into two rows) and put the paper in a row before them. After the signal each team jumps from paper to paper to get across the stream. 

8. Now We got Into Big Waves, Hooray

Kids really liked this one, Just a blue blanket, adults holding four ends of it and slightly swinging the blanket with one kid in it. 

9. Big Reef

Kids one after another passing ballon with hands up, when the ballon reaches last kid, the ballon goes under the legs back to the first kid. 

10. Sh Sh Shark!!! 

One adult in the middle of room is the shark under the blanket. Each kid has his home base which is a color paper. Kids have to wake up the shark and when the shark is up, it tries to get kids, so "little fish" (kids) have to run to their "homes". 

And finally we came to the Blow Fish guy--a piñata full of candy!

After all games and piñata, all kids are invited to an ocean picnic which was in the middle of our sitting room. We have a blue carpet so it is kinda ocean, but still I didn't want to make it dirty! haha! So I got an Ikea blue color shower curtain and we made a big blue ocean tablecloths. I came up with this idea because we have small dining table and it was taken by all the food, so there were no table or chairs available. 

Alina's Cake

I used marzipan to make a Nemo and other little animals and seaweeds. I also used local candies for jelly fishes. I never had worked with marzipan before. It was a very simple cake. Coffee cake recipe baked as 3 round cakes. I divided cake batter into two part and put blue color in one and yellow into another, after I put one spoon yellow then one spoon blue on top of yellow and so on until I filled up the baking dish. When it is baked it looks cool inside. 

I put two round cakes on top of each other connected with cream, the third cake cut in half. Put the two half on top of each other and then put it on top of the main cake to look like a reef. Cover with frosting and decorate with all the sea animals. 

The Food

I was looking at everything possible blue and orange. I think I still could spot these colors anywhere I go! Hah! I made a little candy bar. I found imported sharks candy and got some other ones to make a candy skewer. 

One bowl was Fish and Chips (gold fish cracker with potato chips). I made a gold fish trail mix as well. 

I borrowed ideas from the Internet for cute oysters (two cookies with the marshmallow in the middle and pink frosting inside) I didn't make cookies, I used Ikea's--worked great just mix sugar powder with water and pink coloring, put on the cookie, then put tiny marshmallow on it and half way open other cookie. Internet version had two eyes on top cookie. 

Cupcakes were decorated with a gold fish and a pretzel stick on it like a fishing pole.

For a punch, I had a Sweet pea tea I got from Thailand- very healthy and amazingly blue color tea. I mixed with Sprite and put candy sharks frozen ahead of time in the ice cubes. My blue color tea reacted on sprite and turn into amazing purple color.

Party Favors

Again, I borrowed idea for packaging from online (really easy to make) Inside was a little fish toy, seaweed package, lolly pop, chocolate stones candy package and whistle to scare sharks away.  

What have you done for a Nemo or Ocean party?!