chicken babies: Clown School Birthday Party

My son just turned 6 and he asked for a clown party. He is a rather silly boy so I guess it fits.

As the guests arrived, they colored in clown pictures I printed off the internet. Then when we all had gathered, I welcomed them to clown school and they chose their clown names. I put a bunch of silly names in a jar and let them each choose out 3. They could choose 1 of the three to be their clown name or they could combine 2 if they liked.

What does that say? Razzle Giggles?

Once we had our clown names, it was time to learn how to put on our clown faces. To do this we played "put the red nose on the clown"; not real exciting, but good for this age group. Then we had to learn how to walk in our big clown shoes. We got a couple of pair of my husbands shoes and put the kids in two groups. I had them also balance a bean bag on their heads to slow them down so there wouldn't be any running and tripping. As they raced, the other kids would cheer on their team, using clown names of course. (note to self: next time hand out name tags with new clown names to help avoid confusion)

Next came the "how to make people laugh" part of clown school. For this we practiced slipping on a banana peel. I taped some yellow streamers together at the tip to make our banana peel and put it on the floor. Each child took a couple of turns walking up to it, pretending not to see it, and slipping hilariously on it. Some of the kids really got into this; others not so much, but everyone laughed a lot. We videotaped them all, thinking that we could watch them at the end of the party if we needed to fill up time, because what child doesn't love to watch himself on tv? We didn't end up having time, but I made a video of some of them.

We then ate cake and ice cream. I used a round pan and half a wilton ball pan to make the clown head. To make the face decorations I used airheads. I love using airheads to decorate cakes. The colors are really bright and they're easy to shape. You just pop them in the microwave for 5 or 6 seconds and then put them in between wax paper to roll them out flat with a rolling pin, and cut as desired. Plus I didn't have to mix lots of different color frostings or use decorating bags. The red nose is a warmed airhead rolled into a ball. To make the hat, I cut a cake donut in half, secured it on the head with straws and wrapped airheads over it (mmmmm. . . . gross). For hair, I used gummy worms secured with half a toothpick. I thought it would be fun to use cotton candy for hair, but I couldn't find any. I used melted chocolate chips to draw on the eyes and smile. I had twisted 2 colorful twizzlers together and secured them to the head with toothpicks to make the ruffle at the bottom.

After cake and presents, I had the kids sit and watch the "Best clown in town" Backyardigans show (I love the backyardigans) while I made clown balloon hats for them. I bought a Klutz balloon twisting book on amazon. The kids loved them. This lasted until the parents came to pick up children.

My son handed out the party bags, which contained a variety of things essential for every clown and purchased from oriental trading company, mostly. The party bags consisted of a red clown nose (of course), kazoos, laffy taffy, graduation pen, graduation bracelet, bubbles, silly face, and smiley stamps.