February 18, 2010

Chinese New Year Party: Games and goody bags

In this post I am going to list what I have planned for the games and goody bags that will have at Mia's Chinese New Year party. Since the party was originally planed for the day before valentines day you will see some of that mixed in.

Here are the games.

All the games that I have planned came from a site called Activity Village.

The first game that I will tell you about is The chopstick game.

 I got the idea from here. We will be using these for the game.

I also want to mention that I got the chopsticks from Skybluepink.com. If you scroll down you will see that you can get 10 for $1 which is a great price unless you can get them free from a local Chinese restaurant. I just want to mention that Skybluepink has tons of other Asian inspired stuff and also their shipping prices were very low and they are a wonderful company to work with (Sadly I feel the need to mention that I was NOT paid for my opinion).

The next game on the list is Catch the dragon's tail (I have also heard it called Catch the snake's tail). This is a very fun group game and you can find the directions here.

The last game on the list is Throwing the square which I believe is a traditional Chinese game. Here are the directions for the game. I actually made a set for everyone to take home in their goody bags but I will explain more about that later.

Before everyone leaves the party we will pop these.

Fire crackers are a bid deal when celebrating the new year. Since those are out of season here in the U.S.  I think these would be a good substitute.

Here is what we are including in the goody bags.

For the goody bags (well actually boxes) we are using take out boxes. We searched everywhere for either red or gold boxes but the closest thing we could find was this

 
I don't know it you can tell or not but it is covered with pink and red hearts. We found these at Michaels on sell for $.98 a piece. They don't exactly go with our theme but they will do and I got a good deal on them so what more can you ask for the week before Valentine's Day.

One of the things that they are going to be able to take home with them is a set of chopstick that we will be using at the party to play a game with.

I will be including a set of throw the square for them to take home.

It is just a 24" x 12" piece of fabric with a line drawn the middle. I used something called fray check around the edges so that I wouldn't have to hem it.

For the bean bags I just used yellow craft felt and with fabric paint drew the symbols for tiger (on the left) and dragon (on the right).

At my local Walmart they sell boxes of fortune cookies so I just picked some up to include.

Something else that I will be including is Party Poppers
I found the idea and wonderful directions from Little Birdie Secrets. I made these with yellow tissue paper and wrapped in red wrapping paper with red ribbons. I found the cracker snaps at Olde English Crackers for $4.25 for 25 of them. There shipping is very reasonable and fast.

We will be filling the poppers with these

The last thing that will be included are the famous Red Envelope. 

There are a lot of different ideas out there but I liked this one from Activity Village the best. It even includes a template. At Chinese New Year it is traditional for parents and elders to give gifts of "lucky money" to children and unmarried adults.  The money, which can vary from a small, new coin to a substantial sum, is always presented in a red envelope. We looked everywhere for chocolate coins but couldn't find any so we are settling for these.
 
they have a dragon on one side and a Chinese symbol on the other. I got these at Skybluepink.com for 36 for $1.00. I think I read somewhere that you are supposed to include an even number of coins for luck.

Well that is it for the Chinese New Year Party. Hope you enjoyed it.


9 comments:

  1. How fun! I'll have to try some of these ideas!
    Kas

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  2. i love watching this party come together!! I bought some of those fortune cookies this evening myself.

    trisha

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  3. we love those poppers. Sounds like so much fun! love the goody bags!

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  4. How fun! My kids would love these. The goody bags are adorable!

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  5. Oh my gosh, what fun ideas! My kids would love it.

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  6. These are great ideas - sounds like such a fun party. How did it go?

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  7. What great ideas.... I am always looking for good ideas to use with holidays at school.

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  8. From the looks of things the party went over very well...happy birthday Mia!

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