Dolphin Birthday Party

My daughter turned 9 this past November and asked for a dolphin party.
When she told me she wanted a dolphin party, I was not enthusiastic.  I tried to talk her into many other themes which I thought would be much more fun and much easier to plan.  I even came up with an awesome foot themed party that I thought would be hilarious, but she was less then thrilled with that idea.  However, we came up with some fun activities and I think everyone who came had a good time.

When the partygoers arrived, they drew on our traditional "mural on the hallway wall".  This is a great opening activity because it gives the kids something to do while they are waiting for the other kids, and sometimes kids go back and do more on it during the party.

We started the dolphin party by practicing to catch fish in our mouths, ya know, like dolphins do.  I gave everyone a cup of goldfish and they all practiced.  It was fun to watch.  Some were quite incapable of tossing the goldfish anywhere close to them.  After a while, they all sat down and took turns demonstrating their fish catching prowess, if they wanted to.

catching fish

Next, I gave everyone a little stuffed dolphin (I had found these for about a dollar each at a place in town that sells things from oriental trading company) and we threw the dolphins through a hula hoop.  The kids stood in a line and took turns.  If they missed, they sat down.  If they made it, they went to the back of line.  I moved farther back with the hula hoop each round.

Then we put the dolphins aside and decided to throw ourselves through the hula hoop.  I got our gymnastics mat out ($5 at a yard sale, such a great deal) and the kids who were interested took turns jumping through the hoop.  Some even did rolls or spins through it.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Next we played a shark/dolphin version of the "detective handshake" game I used to play with students in summer school. In this game the kids would close their eyes while I walked around and tapped one of them on the head.  This child was the "shark". Then everyone opened their eyes. They walked around shaking hands with the other players.  If the shark decided to eat a dolphin, he would gently scratch the inside of that person's hand while they were shaking hands.  The dolphin was supposed to shake 2 more hands and then die a dramatic death.  The playing stopped, anyone who had been scratched but hadn't died yet went ahead and did their dramatic death,  and I let a couple of people guess who they thought the shark was.  If no one got it right, we kept playing.  The kids thought this game was a lot of fun, and it took a while for some of them to remember the 2 handshakes after being scratched rule, so it was easier to guess the shark.  We played many rounds, and we went back and played more after cake and presents.

This picture makes me laugh for 2 reasons - first, my little 2 year old decided
to lie down and be dead with the other kids, and second, it looks like Maren's
friend Josh is stepping on him.  

For the dolphin cake, I used green sour strings for the seaweed, and airheads and starburst to form fish, a mermaid, and a dolphin.

I used sprinkles around the bottom for the sandy ocean floor

This dolphin was on top of the cake.  I thought it was pretty cute.

 We sent the kids home with a party bag full of ocean things, such as sweedish fish, a handful of salt water taffy, bubbles, an ocean themed eraser, their stuffed dolphins, and a glittery plastic necklace which I had initially planned to use in some kind of ring toss game, but the kids liked using them as mini hoops to throw their stuffed dolphins through.

It turned out to be a great party, but I'm still going to try and get her to do a foot party someday.