Old style birthday party panda theme ideas please!

furrypig

Hi everyone and long time no see!!

My daughter is nearing her 8th birthday and I have managed to dissuade her from the £90 bowling party (for 15 kids) and the £4 a head food on top!!

Anyway we are now having a birthday party at home and she is panda mad, so it is now a panda party.

Does anyone have any ideas what we can do for a panda party?? Maybe it could be a chinese/panda party as that's where they come from after all!

Ideas so far come dressed as a panda (or in black/white) or chinese style fancy dress, maybe some chinese themed food (if its cheap and easy for kids and me!), something to do with bamboo?? what games?? what decorations?? what can I do??

I know there was a great thread on parties last year that I followed, so would appreciate any ideas to minimise costs but still make it fun when there is so much competition for parties out there!!

I love a challenge so really looking forward to your ideas!

Thanks everyon in advance!

reehsetin

those paper chains you can get or make, make sum green ones put them vertically (bamboo!) and then white and black mixed ones horizontelly so it will look a bit different?
pin the tail on the panda - great way to spend time with kids too drawing/colouring in and designing the panda?

dont know how impressed kids would be with chinese food? especially at a party
black and white marzipan on a cake? insted of the usual party hats make sum ok those like flat hats
and im out of ideas!

furrypig

Thanks for that!

All ideas gratefully received! My daughter suggested chinese food but she only likes rice and noodles! It's easy but I think a bit messy! Not to mention boring for everyone else!

Spendless

panda pop fizzy drinks. Can't think of anything else at mo.

furrypig

Why not?? It's a party after all! are these readily available at most supermarkets??

Spendless

Not sure:cool: . Find them in all the independants (eg newsagents) round here. Don't know if it's regional or not
http://www.pandapops.com/

Pink.

Sorry furrypig,

A bit off topic, but I was googling to try and find a template for a panda mask for you and came across this website that your daughter might enjoy.

Pink

who is used to looking for things like this because I have a six year old who is mad about bulls!

Pink.

Not very Old Style , but Asda do birthday cakes where you bring in a picture, and they will print it onto a cake. (Ours was a picture of a bull, and master Pink was delighted). From memory it costs about £8 for quite a large cake.

Pink

uberzoldat

Local cash and carries sell cases of panda pops for about £3 for 24 bottles. Maybe if you know a kind shop owner or business person who would go and get some for you?

ChocClare

Chinese games: how about getting some chopsticks and having the girls either try to put something into something else (come on, you know what I mean! Beans into a cup, for example!) using the chopsticks or else eat marshmallows with them?
Paper fans (can be homemade) to fan ping pong balls across the room. You could have 2 teams in a relay for this back and forth.
Chinese children are given lucky red envelopes at Chinese New Year which are filled with coins. You could print out this pattern (click on link once you're there for Chinese clipart) http://www.newton.mec.edu/Angier/DimSum/china__dim_sum_red_envelop.html and have the girls decorate and make lucky envelopes, then fill with chocolate coins (usually cheap from Lidl) to take home as party bags.
Panda games: Rescue the panda - divide them into teams and have a pile of pandas/teddies/soft toys at one end and a cardboard box "hospital" at the other. Give each team a teatowel. Now have two girls carry a panda (or other teddy/soft toy) on a teatowel they're holding between them as a stretcher and run towards the "hospital". They then have to stop at a certain point and chuck the panda into the "hospital" by swinging it off their teatowel to land in the "hospital" box. They will miss everytime, I can guarantee it. Hours of laughs. When they finally get the panda in the box they race back and give the teatowel to the next paramedics on their team.
Hidden panda: have the girls walk round in a circle and when you say so/the music stops they have to make themselves into a ball on the floor with their arms over their heads and their eyes tightly shut. Now you walk into the circle and cover one of them up with a blanket. Tell them to open their eyes. They have to work out who is the panda hidden under the blanket. Girls are surprisingly slow at this, but for such a simple game it's amazingly popular, with everyone wanting to have a turn at being hidden.
As you may have spotted, I am a Rainbow Guider (occasionally help out at Brownies, too!). I'll let you know if I can think of anything else!

Yikes

Here's one thing you might consider:

http://www.pandasinternational.org/panda_party.html

As for games or activities, you could maybe spend some time having the kids make panda masks for themselves (cheap white paper plates might make a good base to start from), and then they could wear them for different games and other activities. I'd recycle some old stand-by games, and just give them a panda twist: three-legged panda races, panda twister (just black and white dots), musical panda chairs (with Chinese music?), panda limbo dancing (with a bamboo stick), panda spoon races (with water to fill up a jar made to look like a panda, or with an egg painted to look like a baby panda -- other activities!)... things like that. If your daughter and her friends like fortune cookies, you could try baking them as a party activity. I did it once, years ago, and while it was a bit fussy, the girls could also be occupied by making up fortunes to go in the cookies. Or, a bit simpler activity would be to make and/or decorate sugar cookies or shortbread or gingerbread to look like pandas. Or make panda sundaes/parfaits, with vanilla ice cream and assorted chocolate and/or licorice candies!

HTH...