Party Idea – Beach Party

Party Idea - Beach

This Beach party idea is a little extra special as it’s was for my little boy 🙂 The photos are looking a little old as this party was in 2009.

We created a Beach/Pool party for his 1st birthday party and it was lots of fun, even the adults had fun.

I printed surfboards for cupcake toppers and used flip flop shoe keyrings , We also printed off some shark fins to use as cupcake toppers. I laminated the printouts so they were firm enough to stick into the cupcake and could be washed and re-used if required.

Party Guests were able to keep the shoe keyring from their cupcake if they wanted to and every child got a plastic beach bucket and an inexpensive beach towel to take home.

A beach party would not be complete without a sandpit and giant beach ball so we added those too.

The party food was all about sand, so I used my food mixer to crush graham crackers for the sand, you could use any type of light brown biscuit.

The fruit sticks were a huge hit and I added a Shark Gummy to the top of the lolly sticks.

I decorated the table with thin bird netting which was very inexpensive and small plastic sand molds.

We dressed up in Lifeguard shirts and the kids just wore swimmers.

beach party decorations — Beach party decorations

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I guess moss and lichen are more things that you see in the spring than in the summer, but there are some deep shady parts of our yard that stay mossy all year, and summer is a fine time to look for plants that like to live in shady, wet areas.

Raising Up Wild Things has a really pretty set of printables to use for a moss and lichen unit study.

And just in case you’re like me and don’t really know the difference, moss is a plant that grows in damp wooded areas, while lichen is a combination of fungus and algae that live together. Lichen can live in different environments but are often found in places where you would find moss, too.

The printable includes drawings of some common moss such as sphagnum moss and wood moss, as well as common lichen shapes (crusty, leafy and shrubby). There are good sized images you can print out and laminate to use to compare to specimens you find when you are exploring nature.

There’s also a forest floor coloring page and a printable journaling page where kids can write or draw their observations and there are a few questions older kids can answer.

You can use these when you go on a walk in the woods (or the back yard) to talk about what you are seeing, or combine them with other resources to talk about things that live in the forest. Check them out at Raising Up Wild Things.

This PDF from the Morton Arboretum has a bunch of pictures of different kinds of moss and where to find them, which could also be helpful in your studies. Learn more about lichen, including what they are and what they are not, in this article from the US Forest Service.

[Photo: Raising Up Wild Things]

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