Pink Poodles in Paris

This week we are having Pink Poodles in Paris parties. G earned points and this is what she picked to redeem them for. We decided to plan one party and have it several times over the week so that we could keep the parties small. With planning theme parties I keep this 'rule of thumb' that I learned doing preschool. It has worked well for me with parties.
1. Start with a gathering activity. An activity that keeps kids busy but needs no help while people are arriving and you are answering the door. For this party they strung necklaces for themselves and the "dogs" that they brought.
2. Next comes "lesson time". This is the game portion of the event for a party. We had three games: 1. The Chef-taste test- They had a paper full of pictures of food and they tasted three different baby foods and had to circle the food they thought it was. 2. The Dog Bone Hunt-We hid dog bones around the basement and they had to find them. Some had stickers on them and they got prizes for the ones with stickers and the one who found the most got something extra. 3. Decorating-They decorated dog shaped cookies.
3. Snack Time. We cleaned up the mess and set the table with pink dishes and pink lemonade. We had a tray of bagels, cheese, fruit, and cakes. We included the cookies they just decorated here. They got to have a Tea Time with their "poodles" while French music played in the background.
4. Playtime. After this I let them choose whether to play another game that is self running--Playdough Charades or go play with G's petshop toys. G got to practice asking her guests what they'd like to do. For Playdough Charades I made my own pink playdough and then cut 3x5 cards in half and wrote simple words on them like "tree", "dog", dog bone", etc.

I keep a box of decorations for parties that includes white Christmas lights and wedding streamers so we decorated with that along with pink pillows and all the stuffed dogs we could find. This party filled up 2 hours completely and they could have played longer but I have to run kids to the gym in the late afternoon so it had to end. The hardest part of the party was making a pink poodle skirt for my daughter to wear. I found that felt skirts stretch and are not good choices for 8 year olds! But it all worked out and it was nice having it set up once but usable more than once.