Fall Parties

A couple of weeks ago Emily's teacher emailed me to see if I would head up the festivities for their classroom Fall Party. The 1st and 2nd graders were going to do one big combined party with a different activity happening in each classroom. They've been working on measuring lately and wanted as many of the activities to involve types of measuring. Since there are three 1st grades, and three 2nd grades, the teachers came up with six different activities and needed lots of parent helpers to pull it off.

1. Measure pumpkins
2. Weigh pumpkins
3. Make a trail mix
4. Craft - Make a pumpkin with strips of construction paper
5. Leaf Rubbings
6. Decorate Cookies

Any guesses on the room they wanted me to head up? ... 6. Decorate cookies ... here's where the project got tricky ... they want the kids to measure out all the decorating ingredients, there are 140 students AND it needs to fill 20 minutes.

Lots of thinking, lots of calculating, lots of conversations with GR and my Mom about how to make this doable without turning my kitchen into a massive bakery. We realized that with 20 minutes to fill, one cookie per child wasn't going to be enough, really we needed 3 cookies each, which meant 420 cookies and this is where my mind started to whirl uncontrollably!

My mom convinced me to give a local grocery store bakery a call to see if they could donate or cut us a really good deal on sugar cookies and frosting. They ended up selling me 420 cookies (with at least 40 extras) for $.20/cookie and donating a large 26lb bucket of orange frosting. This was such a huge help! We asked the parents to send in $.60/child to cover the cost of the cookies and we were able to collect more than enough to cover the cost of the cookies! Parents were also asked to help supply the other things we'd need for the party ... for my room we needed:

17 - 3.25 oz. containers of Halloween themed candied mixed sprinkles. ... 1 teaspoon/cookie
($1 @ Target in dollar bins. $1.88 @ Walmart in Halloween candy isle.)

6 - 1lb 8 oz. bags of candy corns ($1.68 @ Walmart) ... 15/child

5 - 24 oz. bags of pumpkins ($1.68 @ Walmart) ... 3/child

4 - 11 oz. bags of chocolate chips ... 1/2 tablespoon / child

4 - 14 oz. bags of plain milk chocolate M&Ms ... 1 tablespoon / child

I got lots of parent helpers, GR decided to have a touch of the stomach flu (wink, wink) and stayed home with Alex, Anna was a dream, and the 1st and 2nd graders had a great time with their 2.5 hour long party!





I think I mentioned last year that Rebecca's 2nd grade Halloween party was pretty pathetic ... so pathetic that she was in tears at the end of the day. Emily had had uproarious fun - tons of games, loads of treats, the works - and she, she got a small bag of trail mix and half a cookie. After that I promised her it wouldn't happen again. And I did all I could to help make the rest of her parties that year fun. It's looking like I'll have to keep that promise until she graduates.

After two notices home to parents looking for Fall party helpers, with no takers, I sent a note saying I was already committed in the 1st/2nd grade pods, but would be willing to organize the party. I tried to follow Alyson's magic formula for a successful party ... having violated more rules on her list when organizing past parties than I care to publicly admit, I followed it in every aspect, in hopes that I could pull off a successful party that would compete with Emily's 2.5 hours of fun.

I got a couple of Mom's to help by providing drink pouches, trail mix, and sugar cookies. In place of apples, I sent a cooler with green and orange Jell-O cups that had two creepy spider rings floating in each cup. They played the Halloween pairing game (suggested by Alyson), ate their snacks and went home. I was able to pop into Becca's room at the very end, and everyone seemed happy and like they'd been kept busy.