{Party} We're Going on a Bear Hunt Birthday Party-Part 1

I cannot believe the party was in september and I still haven't posted the pictures.... oops !
Here they are, finally, hope you will enjoy them !

My "little" girl turned 5 last september and she wanted a party themed around one of her favourite books: We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. If you don't know the story, it is the adventure of a family going on a bear hunt. To reach the bear cave, they have to go through grass, a river, mud, a forest and a snowstorm !

Our birthday activity was obvious: we had to go on a bear hunt ourselves !
The weather last september being very unreliable, we were not able to have the party in a country park as we had hoped to do and instead we held it in our garden. So I recreated all the elements from the book for the children to go through.

To make it more interesting I organized the hunt as a challenge with tasks to be completed.
Every task consisted in finding a hidden bear coin. Once retrieved the coin could be glued onto a card. When the children had been through all the elements, the card was full and they could go into the cave to discover their prize.

Grass: the coins were hidden in a tunnel on which I had sewn green crepe paper streamers. 

River: the coins were in the paddling pool and the children had to look for them blindfolded (nobody actually fell in the water, which was a miracle !)
Mud: the coins were in the mud and they had to dig in to find hem
Forest: our forest consisted in a pile of branches on the floor
Snowstorm: I use white wool to obstruct the path (laser beam style !)

and then finally the cave, which was our climbing frame den, in which the children found a big box.
We have a DVD with the book and my daughters love to sing to tell the story so we sang all the way through our bear hunt. By the time we reached the cave our little hunters were quite excited and impatient to open the mystery box.

Inside they found bears and other animals to stuff and take home with them (see this previous post for more info).
The children then spent some time customizing their new friends. I had prepared some ribbons and paper tags in different colours so they made them collars. They also had a t-shirt each and they got to paint on them (note: I strongly advise you to go for fabric pens instead of paint. The children found the paint difficult to use. It was quite messy and took a long time to dry. Pens would have been a lot easier)

I think the bear hunt was a success and I know a few children who still have their stuffed bear so I suppose they liked them.

The sign we had on our front door!

Come back later this week for pictures of the dessert table...