END OF SCHOOL PARTY IDEAS

END OF SCHOOL THEME IDEAS:

• Host a pizza party

• Host a summer theme party outdoor with water balloons, water guns and sprinklers

• If school allows, have a pool party off-campus

• Have a picnic off-campus at a park or at the playground – use blankets and have the kids bring sack lunches or grill hamburger and hot dogs and play soccer or baseball

• Cool off with an ice cream sundae party! Ask the parents to each bring ice cream or a topping and let the kids take each others orders and make each others ice cream

END OF SCHOOL DECORATION IDEAS:

• Decorate with “summer fun” items like beach balls, grass skirts around the tables and sea shells

• Use bright colors –yellows and oranges and hot pinks

END OF SCHOOL GAME IDEAS:

• Ask for $ or a white t-shirt from each student and have the students sign each others shirts

• Ask each student to bring their baby picture to class, post them all on a board and have each of the students try to guess “who’s who”

• Write or type the names of various teacher throughout the school on a sticky label. As each student arrives, place the label (without them seeing the name on it) on the student’s back. Each student walks around asking questions about their teacher on their back until they figure out who it is

• Pass out funny awards to each student like “class clown” or “most likely to fall asleep in class” – call out the name of the award and see if the class can guess who the award goes to

• Blow up a picture of a teacher and play “Pin the moustache on the teacher”

• Have each student wrap and decorate a shoe box (just like they would for valentines day) and have all of the students write a favorite memory or what they like about that student on a small piece of paper and then everyone exchange and place into each others boxes

• Pass around memory books for each other to sign – or for something different, have each other sign beach balls, t-shirts or caps

END OF SCHOOL FAVOR IDEAS:

Teacher:

• Pass around a memory book to all the students and have them write their favorite memory throughout the year – present it to the teacher at the party

• Have each child hand the teacher on the last day of school one long-stem rose with a tag or note attached of what their favorite moment with their teacher was throughout the year

Students:

• Beach balls

• Bubbles

• Summertime book

• Sand bucket with candies inside

• Sea shells

• Photo album of pics throughout the year of the children

FALL/HALLOWEEN PARTY IDEAS

FALL/HALLOWEEN PARTY DECORATION IDEAS:

• Hang decorative spider web everywhere you can – add plastic spiders for a more realistic effect

• If the kids are older (so as to not get scared), use a strobe light and fog machine for extra spooky atmosphere

• Decorate with orange, black and purple balloons

• Have Halloween/spooky music playing like “Monster Mash” and “Ghostbusters”

FALL/HALLOWEEN PARTY GAME IDEAS:

• Let every child decorate a small pumpkin with paint or if the kids are older, they can carve their pumpkin – award the best, funniest and worst pumpkin designs

• Have a pumpkin seed spitting contest!!

• Just like “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” – Do a variation of the game – like “Pin the Stem on the Pumpkin” or “Pin the Wart on the Witch”

• Play an old-fashioned game of “Bobbing for Apples”

• Designate awards for the children’s costumes – have a costume contest

• If the school has strict guidelines about children’s costumes, try a variation like having the children dress like their favorite storybook character or their favorite animal, wear their favorite, crazy hat or dress like what they want to be when they grow up or even have a face painter come in and paint their faces

• Let the kids show off their costumes by having a costume parade – either by going class to class or by having an all-school gathering and each class being introduced to the other classes

• Blindfold the children and let them put their hands in bowls of scary stuff! Use your imagination - like jello, spaghetti noodles, boiled egg yolks, bologna, etc.

• Have fun with a Halloween or pumpkin piñata

• Separate the kids into groups and each group gets a few rolls of toilet paper – time the kids and see how fast they can “mummy wrap” a designated child in their group – vote on who is the best “mummy” once time is up

• Play Halloween music or scary sound effects and have all the children dance. When the music stops, whoever is caught still dancing is out. The last person still dancing wins.

• Try to recruit a teacher, school nurse or school cook and have them put a white sheet over their heads and walk into the classroom and let the children ask questions to get hints – and try to guess who is the school “ghost!”

• Fill a jar with a halloween candy and ask all of the kids to try to guess how many candies are in the jar – whoever guesses the closest, wins.

• Decorate ping-pong balls to look eyeballs with paint or a marker. Divide the class into 3-4 teams and each teammate will have to go from one designated area to another by holding a spoon in their mouth with the eyeball balanced on the spoon – if they drop the eyeball, they have to start from the beginning - they tag the next person in their group and then it’s their turn – whoever goes through all of their teammates first, wins

• Let the kids use their imaginations by the class getting into a big circle – start the story with, “Once upon a time” and the first child says a sentence, and then the next child to their left says another sentence and go around the circle formulating a scary story (**you may need to set some rules as to how scary the story can get)

• This would need an all-school participation – have a school wide “trick or treating time” – designate 5 minutes per classroom (could even use the school bell to make the transitions easier) and let each classroom travel together into each classroom and fill up with candy into the children’s buckets -

HALLOWEEN PARTY FAVOR IDEAS:

• Cover a sucker with a Kleenex, use a marker to make the eyes and tie below the sucker with ribbon to make a ghost favor

• Use clear, plastic gloves and place candy corn at the tips of each finger and then fill with popcorn – tie off the base of the hand with ribbon. Place a plastic spider ring on one of the fingers.

• Small pumpkins to take home and decorate

• Halloween buckets to use on their trick-or-treat hunts later that night

VALENTINE PARTY IDEAS

VALENTINE PARTY THEME IDEAS:

• Host a pizza party

• Host a Valentine cookie decorating party

• Host an ice cream sundae party! Ask the parents to each bring ice cream or a topping and let the kids take each others orders and make each others ice cream

• Do the fun valentine exchange by having each of the classmates decorate a bag, shoe box or bucket in Valentines Day items and do a card exchange to place in each others boxes

VALENTINE PARTY DECORATION IDEAS:

• Decorate with lots of red and pink balloons – even tie into arches or let the ribbon dangle from the ceiling

• Use lots of red and pink colors

• Use a white tablecloth and scatter conversation hearts on the table or you can cut paper hearts and sequins or jewels across the table

• Have one of the moms or teachers dress up like a cupid and come by to bring valentines for all the kids

VALENTINE PARTY GAME IDEAS:

• Divide the class into 2 teams – one person from each team has 30 seconds to stack as many conversations hearts on top of each other without letting them fall within the time period – whoever of the 2 has more wins – and when everyone has a turn, the team with the most winners, wins

• Cut out hearts of the same shape and size out of red paper. Then cut the hearts in half in a zig-zag pattern so that every heart is different. Randomly pass out ½ of a heart to each of the children, and see if the children can find the other ½ of their heart – whoever finds their match the fastest, wins

• Create a large necklace out of beads or Valentine candies so that it hangs down to your waist. At the class party, split the class up into 2 teams and have them line up – the first person in line on each team has the necklace on and they have to pass the necklace down the line without using their hands – funny!

• Fill a jar full of red candies or conversation hearts (count them before you put them in!) and let the kids try to guess how many candies are inside – closest to actual number, wins

• As a craft project, let the children create Love Coupons for their parents and/or siblings – let them be as creative as they want to be with them

• Split the class into 2 teams and have them line up. Put a pile of candies on a desk at the front of each of the 2 teams. The first in line runs up, puts mittens or puffy, ski gloves on and tries to unwrap one piece of candy, put it in their mouth and race to tag the next in line on their team. First team that finishes, wins

• Pass out white paper plates to each of the children. Ask them to put their plate on top of their head and draw a heart on their plate and color it in without looking at it – let the kids vote on the neatest

• Blindfold one child from the class, then quietly choose another classmate to walk up to the child and say “I love Valentines Day” – they can disguise their voice however they want to. The blindfolded child tries to guess who is saying “I love Valentines Day” – they get 3 guesses

• Hot glue a big, red paper heart to a clothespin and pass one out to each of the kids in the class at the beginning of the party – throughout the party, the kids are not allowed to say the words “Valentine,” “Love,” or “Party” if someone catches another classmate saying one of the words, then they can take away their clothespin. Whoever has the most clothespins at the end of the party, wins.

• Divide the class up into 2 teams and let the kids go on a scavenger hunt to find miscellaneous Valentine-related items – whoever finds the most, wins

VALENTINE PARTY FAVOR IDEAS:

• Conversations hearts

• Hershey Kisses

• Chocolate Roses

• Sachet bags full of candies

• Beaded bracelets with bells attached

• Valentine cookies

CHRISTMAS/WINTER CLASS PARTY IDEAS

CHRISTMAS THEME IDEAS:

• Host a pizza party

• Host a white elephant gift exchange – possible themed exchanges: - book theme - board game theme - ornament theme - coloring book theme - movie theme - Holiday candy theme

• Organize a Secret Santa for one of the employees/teachers of the schools – and the class secretly raises money for the chosen recipient and then all present it to him/her from the class during the party

• Use red or green feather boas and metallic gossamers as table-runners

CHRISTMAS PARTY DECORATION IDEAS:

• Let the kids have fun with a snow cone machine! Trying out different flavors – or serve hot chocolate and peppermint ice cream

• Use red and/or green tablecloths and scatter red and green Hershey Kisses in the center of table around a miniature Christmas tree as centerpiece

• Use red or green feather boas and metallic gossamers as table-runners

• Use fun, themed ornaments as decorations – either putting at each place setting or making a cute centerpiece with some

• Hang the old-fashioned paper snowflakes from the ceilings – just fold up a piece of white paper in 1/8s and cut small holes around the edges, unfold to make a snowflake – you can also cut the outside edges to give more of a circular shape – hang from ceiling – you can also incorporate this into a craft for the kids to do during the party

CHRISTMAS PARTY GAME IDEAS:

• Give the children each a white, paper plate and a marker. Ask them to put the plate on top of their heads and when the teacher or hostess says, “GO!” the class has to draw a snowman on their plate without looking or taking their plate down – when time is up, whoever has the best snowman, wins. Let the class vote!

• For small children, pass out 3-4 kleenex’s to each child, let them crumple into a ball and then throw at each other!! If older kids, could use crumpled up paper

• Divide the class into 2 teams – have them line up and at the front of each of the 2 lines – have a wrapped box of macaroni (or anything else fun you can think of). Pass out a pre-cut piece of Christmas wrapping paper to each of the children, all the same size – when the teacher says, “GO!” the first person in line in each of the lines run to their gift, unwrap it and wrap it with their own piece of paper, run back and then tag the next person in line. The first team to finish going through their line, wins

• Ask a teacher or employee of the school to dress up as Santa Claus and crash the party - delivering small favors to all the kids – don’t forget to take pictures!

• Cut out small circles out of red construction paper – one per child. Divide the class into 2 teams and have them line up. The first person in each line puts Vaseline on their nose and applies the red circle to their nose (like Rudolph) and has to run to the other side of the room without the nose falling off. If it falls off, they have to go back, reapply Vaseline and start over. Once they successfully cross the finish line, the next teammate in line has a turn. The first team that has all players cross the finish line – wins

• Divide the class into teams of 4 and each team is given supplies to build a “snowman” – using white trashbags, newspaper (crumple up and stuff into trashbags for body), colored cardstock, markers, ribbon, hats, buttons, etc to decorate their snowman – let the kids vote on who has best snowman

• Make Magic Reindeer Food for the kids to sprinkle on their lawns on Christmas Eve – go to your local craft store and buy small, red sachet bags and fill with oats and red/green glitter – punch a hole in a tag that is marked with directions and loop the drawstring through it

• Fill a box with candy or Christmas coloring books, wrap the box with numerous layers of different prints of wrapping paper. Have the kids sit in a circle and pass the gift around the circle –when the music stops, whoever is holding the gift has to unwrap a layer of wrapping paper. Keep doing this cycle until a child gets to the box – and he can keep what is inside or share with the class

• Have the kids make handprint snowflakes by getting blue or black construction paper and white paint – have them dip their hand into the paint and go around in a circular pattern, overlapping each print slightly

• Blindfold 1 student and pick another child (quietly) from the class to come up to blindfolded child and say “Ho Ho Ho, Who Am I” and can disquise their voice however they want – the blindfolded child gets 3 chances to guess which classmate it was – try to let each chld have a turn at being blindfolded and being the secret voice

• Use Styrofoam balls as ‘snowballs’ and have each of the kids have a turn at tossing the snowball through a wreath opening

• Provide a mini terra-cotta pot for each child along with 2 googly eyes, red pom for the nose and brown card-stock for the antlers. Have the kids outline their hands and cut out the hands and then glue onto the back of the pot – angle out like antlers

CHRISTMAS PARTY FAVOR IDEAS:

• Use red plain gift bags with handles and hot-glue a white, marabou feather boa around the top, edge of bag

• Use red plastic or metal buckets and hot-glue a white, marabou feather boa around the top, edge of of bucket

• Candycanes, chocolates, Christmas M&M’s

• Use miniature stockings that are stuffed with candy

• Use sheer, red, organza sachet bags and add white feather trim and fill with candies

• Use a candy-cane and add some thin, brown yarn around the short end of the cane, 2 googly eyes and a red, mini pom to be a little Rudolph candy-cane

• Santa hats full of candies and coloring books