INVITATIONS
- Set your invitation to music. Use a portable cassette player to record a tune
from your own one-kid band. Sing the party details as lyrics, and mail cassettes in
padded envelopes.
- Write party details on sheet music and mail to guests.
- If you have a friend who likes to sing, hire him or her to deliver "Singing
Invitations" right to your guests' doorsteps!
COSTUMES
- Have the kids come dressed as musical instruments (tell them to use their imaginations).
- Ask the kids to come dressed as favorite musicians - grunge singers, lounge
lizards, pop stars, or conductors!
DECORATIONS
- Cut out music notes from black construction paper and hang them from the ceiling
or tape them to the walls.
- Use musical instruments as table centerpieces, and use sheet music as place mats.
- Play a variety of music in the background when you're not performing your own
musical entertainment.
GAMES
- Play Musical Chairs in a whole new way! Set up chairs in a circle, enough for
all but one of the guests. Give each child a kazoo or inexpensive toy horn. Begin
the game by playing the kazoo as all the guests walk around the chairs. Stop
playing whenever you want. When the playing stops, all players must scramble for a
chair. The player who does not find a seat gets to play the kazoo for the others.
Continue until only one player remains.
- Play Instrument Identification. Have musicians play their instruments one at a
time for your cassette recorder, or tape-record a variety of instruments from your
own music collection. Pause between tunes, and let the kids try to guess what
instrument was played.
- Play the Instrument Identification game using the music from Peter and the Wolf.
ACTIVITIES
- Make your own instruments. Get a book from the library on making simple musical
instruments for kids. Make an oatmeal drum, a pie-pan tambourine, an elastic
bracelet with bells sewn on, two-pot-lid cymbals, sandpaper wood blocks, toilet-paper
kazoos, rice-and-bottle maracas, and so on. When the instruments are finished, line
the kids up for a concert, or march them around the block for a musical parade. Be
sure to videotape the concert for playback later.
- Put on fingerplays set to music when you finish making your instruments. Have
the kids decorate their fingertips with felt-tip pens to make small people or
animal. Then tell the kids to make their "puppets" dance to the music.
FOOD
- Serve food that makes noise! To create a musical meal, try crunchy celery and
carrot sticks, cheese and cracker sandwiches, apple-walnut fruit salad, sodas or
milk shakes with straws, and lots of popcorn. Then take turns "playing" the food
to make a meal band!
DRUM CAKE
- Bake two round cakes; cool.
- Frost one layer with chocolate frosting, place another layer on top, and cover
with chocolate frosting.
- Decorate the sides with tube frosting, making crisscross designs to look tike
the sides of the drum.
- Top the drum cake with small kazoos, harmonicas, or lots of silver bells.
FAVORS
- Let the kids take home the musical instruments they make.
- Give the kids songbooks or fingerplay books so they can
learn new tunes at home.
- Hand out inexpensive harmonicas, kazoos, noisemakers, whistles, or other
music-makers.
- Buy small music-box inserts at a fabric or hobby store and drop them into the
kids' pockets. Then press their pockets and listen to the surprise music!
VARIATIONS
- Take the kids to a concert Try rock, country, or even classical music that
appeals to kids, and let them enjoy the world of music.
- Have a guitar player come to the party to teach the kids how to play a few chords.
HELPFUL HINTS
- If you have valuable musical instruments at the party, be sure to teach the kids
how to handle and respect them, or keep the instruments off limits to avoid damage.
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