Ballet Party - 4 years

At some point in their lives, every little girl dreams of becoming a ballerina. And so my daughter's fourth birthday party theme was ballet. Each invitation was a scroll rolled up and fastened with a pink rose. For decorations: The party room was filled with pink and purple balloons as well as some of the props for the party activities. At the entrance to the room I hung lilac curtains tied back with pink satin ribbons. We played music from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Ballet over the hi-fi for the duration of the party. For costumes: To get the little ballerinas into the mood, I made each little girl a pink netting ballet skirt with satin ribbons to put on when they came through the door. I found some tiny silver crowns at the ballet shop and the girls were given these as part of their transformation into little ballerinas. We had a make-up station for eye shadow and lipstick. I had set up a photo shoot corner for all the beautiful little dancers where the

background was a wall covered in pink and purple balloons. I also happened to find a jumping castle supplier that had a beautiful pink and purple jumping castle which I booked for the day. Once everyone was kitted out and had spent a bit of energy on the jumping castle, we did our first activity. Edible ballerinas: I prepared a separate pack for each

child containing the following: 1x Jolly Jammer Biscuit (a face), 1x chocolate whisper (a hair bun), 1x rectangular strawberry wafer biscuit (leotard body), 2x mini white chocolate sticks (arm), 2x strawberry finger biscuits iced with pink icing on one side to look like ballet shoes (the legs),

1x strawberry whirl jelly (a rose), 2x twisty corn chips (ringlets), a cardboard backing, and a knife. A bowl of chocolate icing was placed on each table. The children then went about building a ballerina on the backing card, pasting the different body parts into position with the icing. While everyone was finishing off their ballerinas, we handed out the party packs.Each party pack was made using the bottom half of a plastic

2 litre Coke bottle. I placed a pink doily around the top part and fastened it with a pink satin ribbon. I punched a hole on either side and fastened the ends of a silver pipe cleaner through each hole to form a handle. I fastened a pink rose to the silver

pipe-cleaner. I tried to find only pink sweets to fill the party packs with. I made ballet slipper butter biscuits and fastened two of these with pink satin ribbons to the side of each party pack. The birthday cake was square with two ballet slippers (made using small loaf pans) on top. I made a cupcake for each child with a plastic ballerina figurine placed on top. I was lucky enough to find candles that looked like pink ballet shoes. The next activity we did was the ballet obstacle

course. I set up a ballet-themed obstacle course in the party room where the children had to perform a series of balletic moves like: plies at the barre, points and courtsies in front of a mirror, bouncing on a mini trampoline, leaping from within one hula hoop to another, pirouetting with hands held above head. The little girls loved this! And they wanted to do it again and again. It was really sweet to see

them try the different moves. To end off the party, I gathered the girls around for a short story (All Tutus Should be Pink by Sheri Brownrigg; Meredith Johnson). The party was a great hit with my daughter, and at the start of the next year she started ballet training for real.

Jessica - DURBANVILLE