My daughter will be celebrating her 10th birthday in November and want's to have a Star Search/American Idol type party. She is thinking of having the attendees prepare a song/dance routine to be performed at the party.
Does anyone have any ideas of how we could organize this and other activities/games we could plan. What about decorations and food - ideas?
Most 10 yr olds I know would be thrilled to have a dance routine taught to them using a song they already know. Get a local dance line member to teach them a dance. Then add karioke (sp) and a line dance.
At 10, I would never have been able to perform a piece in front of people even if they were my friends. Some of us didn't get dance lessons and some of us did. Some of us had parents that didn't want to hear us sing. Unless, you are inviting your daughter's dance class, you will have a wide variety of ability show up. Take care to not make it a competition but a fun shared activity.
Costumes: That alone can be fun and have kept many of my daughters and friends happy for hours. Set a theme or provide parts of a theme and let them finish the costumes. Many a mom will have an old bride's maid dress, or visit the Goodwill, and you can have a fun formal dress up party.
I have had great success using bleach in a spray bottle to reverse dye a dark blue or black T-shirt that had plastic hearts or fish or paper cut outs placed on top. Design with a piece of cardboard in the center, spritz, wait about 20-30 seconds for the color to "develope" and stop in a cold water bath. Rinse in the wash machine, dry, do the other side. Shirts from the dollar store
For decorations, you could hang "stars" from the ceiling by covering cardboard with tin foil (or find some cardboard that is already shiny foil) and string streamers all around. Build a small stage area using free pallets from a newspaper office or some other place (call around) and place a large piece of plywood (painted white) on top (nail at corners to keep in place). Decorate the sides of the stage using painted cardboard, streamers, etc.
For crafts, let them decorate their own "star sunglasses". Buy the kids-type cheap plain sunglasses and let them decorate using glitter glue, glitter and or foamies (cut foam shapes sold in most craft-areas of stores).
They could also make awards to give to others in the party. Put all the names in a "hat" and let each child choose one. Using the premise that all the children know each other, let them create an award for the person whose name they chose (i.e., "Best Friend of ____", "Best Smile", "Great Team Player", "Great Dancer", etc.). Use toilet paper/paper towel rolls, small empty food boxes or any other recycleables you can think of to create an award. Provide glue, paint, tin foil, glitter, glitter glue, foamies, toothpicks, etc. for the decorations.
For invitations, send out a "call" card -- something along the lines of what you might receive after an audition to come back again.
I'm still thinking....
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Charlene, mother to five
When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.
Cindy~~do you have a polaroid instant camera by any chance? You could take pictures of them as they perform, and put them into frames you have cut from fun foam that look like big stars, and hand them out as party favors as they leave the party.
Do you have adults helping to chaperone? You could have them help "dress up" the attendees before they perform--hairstyles, temporary tattoos, make-up, etc. And, don't forget the microphone!! A paper towel cardboard tube, some newspaper and foil & you got it covered. Just squish up some newspaper into a ball, cover it with foil and hot glue it to the top of the paper towel tube. Wrap tube with foil. You could even add glitter to make it more sparkly!
Musical notes cut from black construction paper hung randomly around help to set the mood also!
Just a few ideas that popped into my head.............
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Debbie
You miss 100% of the opportunities you don't take.
These are some great ideas, ladies. Thanks for helping inspire me. Please keep them coming.
I am thinking of making invitation out of the "free cd disks" like you get from AOL. Putting a paper cover over it and writing the invitiation message on it and them putting it in a CD sleeve with glittery stars on it or something jazzy. Any ideas?
Have you ever seen a website where I could get a line dance routing to teach the girls? I think they would really get a hoot out of that...
Get some of the glittery makeup and some feathery boas (I saw some at the dollar store) and/or sequined/shiny material. Cut the material into rectangles or squares large enough to use as a drape, for a wrap-around shirt, skirt or dress, etc. Let the girls do makeovers on each other. Also can use the hair spray paint...just make sure the other parents know about that, tho. The paint typically takes about a week to come completely out.
Another way to make a microphone is
(1) to take a wooden spoon, add some paper towels to spoon part to make it more round, cover with foil & cover the handle with black electrical tape (put paper towels under tape if you want to save the spoon for later use).
(2) get an old headset/earphone type thing and cut off the wires (if it doesn't work)...if it still works, just tuck the wires inside the back waistband of the pants/skirt they are wearing as if they have a "mic" box like on the talk shows.
Do they all have pierced ears? If so, you can make fancy earrings for only a little $$. Buy the U-shaped earring hangers in a package (about 12 in a pack I think), some wire and plastic beads. Measure with the wire how long they want their earrings, then double that & cut. Use needle nose pliers to connect one end of wire to the "o" on the earring U-shape by twisting in around and around several times. Let them string beads onto the wire, leaving about 1/2" at one end. Use the needle nose pliers again to loop end through the 'o' making a complete oval or round shape (whichever they want). They can make bangle bracelets to match by threading on beads and twisting ends together (hide twisted end under one bead).
Serve sandwiches cut with large star-shaped cookie cutters; punch out of a borrowed & cleaned coffee urn (like you find backstage on movie or talk show sets) with styrofoam cups. Make "star" seats (even if you don't have or cannot borrow the folding chair director seats) by painting/stenciling each child's name on a rectangle of material (use old T's, sheets, etc.) and hot gluing ends together around the back of a straight backed chair...they can even take these home for "whatever" use they can find.
Let them decorate plastic champange or wine glasses to drink out of with plastic "crystals", sequins, ribbon, etc. if you don't want to use styrofoam...use a punch bowl tho' to make it more fancy.
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Charlene, mother to five
When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.
Oh I think that is such a cute idea! I'm not sure if it is expensive, but you could rent a karaoke machine and go from there. Also if you have an Xbox (video game) There is a game you can buy that has karaoke. Also, you could put everyones name in a had and have them one girl draw two names or something and that can be her group and they have to come up with basically a talent show. I was hoping for ideas for girls with a Christmas party. Someone suggested looking at kevinkringle.com so I need to give that a look, but do you have any suggestions on something like that? Good luck with your party.
You wanted ideas about a girls Christmas party...any specifics in mind? What are the ages of the girls to be involved? What kind of stuff are they "in to"? What kind of money did you want to put into it? Would you want to use recycled crafts or craft kits? If you can give me more details about what you are looking into doing, I'm sure I can come up with some suggestions (since I have twin girls).
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Charlene, mother to five
When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.
