Fairytale Birthday Party- Fee Fi Fo Fum, So Much Fun! {Bookish Birthdays}

This was the first year that Preschool Bookworm was old enough to ask for a birthday party. When he realized it was a “thing” that your friends could come to celebrate your birthday, he was pretty excited! I’ve been out of the party planning loop for a while, but I managed to shake off the dust and throw together a fun little playdate party (we celebrated ON his birthday– partying on Tuesday mornings is quite fun, in fact!)

We’ve been reading a lot of folktales and fairytales, and PB is obsessed with wolves (the bigger and badder the better), so I ran with that as my theme. Our invitations:

For decor, I created pennant banners using photocopied pages from fairytale books: The Three Bears by Byron Barton, Betsy Red Hoodie by Gail Carson Levine, Yummy: Eight Favorite Fairy Tales by Lucy Cousins, and Happy Birthday, Big Bad Wolf by Frank Asch. This took a lot more time than I anticipated (read: longer than one entire naptime!), so I suspect they will make a repeat appearance at some point in the future! I created paper plate pigs and wolves (which was super simple and perhaps balanced out the banner project!). I also incorporated some “stick house” elements by displaying sticks that the bookworms picked up on a recent nature walk and painted (awesome fine motor activity, btw).

Welcome to our party!

For entertainment, I focused on puppets. I had snagged a puppet theater at a consignment sale about six months ago but it promptly went into the closet until Toddler Bookworm was a little more steady on his feet. This was the perfect opportunity for it to make its debut! Preschool Bookworm and I searched the internet for our favorite pictures of the three pigs, their three houses, and the Big Bad Wolf, and we printed/mounted/popsicle-sticked them to create puppets. We then performed for our friends using Laurie Berkner’s “Lots of Little Pigs” to do the storytelling. (We’ve loved Berkner’s rendition of the tale for a long time now. I shared about it in my intro to audiobooks post here.)

Next, the kids created paper bag puppets. These were right out of a box (aff)— and so adorable!

They also created some brick houses which weren’t as sturdy as the pig’s! This was PB’s “big” gift from Mama & Daddy Bookworm, Melissa & Doug cardboard blocks. (aff)