A Dora rainbow party

When Elora turned 3 in April she decided she wanted a Dora party. I had already started planning a rainbow themed party in my head before she asked for Dora so I decided to combine the themes to make it a Dora rainbow adventure.

I bought Elora a Dora costume to wear and she looked so cute!! I decided to turn myself into a rainbow fairy and Bethany got a rainbow dress too.

 

I decided that to truly be a Dora party there had to be a map, and backpacks and an adventure. I printed out backpack's face from the Nick Jr website and then cut and glued them onto different coloured paper bags (so it was a rainbow instead of just purple), then I added a map to each bag, plus a plastic flute and star shaped sunglasses in various colours that we would need for our adventure.

The first stop was the crocodile jungle so we could incorporate Diego into things. I had a blow up crocodile we use for the pool and I found a blow up Diego on ebay (sadly neither the crocodile or Diego survived the experience!!).I put them on a blue car cover to look like water and made crepe streamer vines and big leaves out of green paper. I scattered a whole heap of plastic jungle animals in the 'water' and each child could have one but first they had to make the crocodile happy by using the flute in their backpack to make music for the crocodile. I downloaded a Dora and Diego crcodile rock song to play for this part but 24 kids playing plastic flutes is rather loud and you couldn't even hear it.

The next stop was star valley. I used the template on the Nick Jr website to cut out lots of explorer stars and drew faces on them then stuck them all around the playground at the church hall where we had the party. I also added some decorative shiny hanging stars for more effect and they actually glistened in the sun so as we walked outside to 'star valley' it was shining which was great!! Before we went outside the kids put on the star shaped glasses from their backpacks cause star valley is bright and then their job was to collect explorer stars. There was also a surpise guest in star valley beacuse swiper tried to beat us to the stars. It was my husband with a blue blindfold and gloves but Elora loved it!!

 

The last place we had to visit on our map was rainbow garden where we would find the lollies that Swiper had stolen from the lolly bags inside the rainbow pinata.

 

The kids all loved this map/backpack adventure and my girls still have their maps and use them to go on adventures in our backyard. This all actually happened halfway though the party though. To start with for when people arrived I had a craft table set up with some rainbow colouring sheets, glue and glitter and cotton balls for clouds. There was also a cookie activity table where kids could ice shortbread star cookies I made with lots of bright colours of icing and use lollies to make faces like explorer stars. There was face painting from a very talented lady who goes to my playgroup, there were lots of coloured balloons all over the floor to play with, plus plenty of food to eat.

The first game we played was pin the tail on swiper which I just printed off from the Nick Jr website and the prize was a stuffed swiper. Then Dora arrived. I found her on the internet and hired her which I was nervous about not having this person recommended by someone I knew but she was great with the kids and happily went along with what I had planned. I was hoping none of the kids freaked out and at first Elora was a bit anxious and I thought it would turn out to be a bad idea but she was so good with the kids that Elora warmed up quickly and then Dora wasn't allowed to leave her side. Once Dora arrived we played pass the backpack and I had wrapped parcels inside the backpack of Dora lip gloss bracelets and stickers for the girls wrapped in pink, and animal wristbands and Diego stickers for the boys wrapped in yellow. It was then time for our map adventure that I already shared above, followed by some singing and dancing with Dora until cake time.

 

 

Ready to grab the backpacks and head off on a rainbow adventure with Dora.

 

 

Next it was time for cake, goodbye cuddles with Dora and lolly bags to take home. I hired a friend of a friend to make the cake and she did such an amazing job, way beyond what I was expecting.

 

Originally I was going to just leave the backpack bags as the lolly bags but I saw these Dora rainbow bags and so many cute rainbow things and decided to do goodie bags as well.

The girls lolly bags. The little unicorn packet had lollies in it in shapes of rainbows, stars and unicorns.



The boys lolly bags with a sticky lizard instead of a unicorn toy and a Diego pencil instead of a Dora one.

Despite being a Dora party most of the decorating and all of the food was done in the rainbow theme. Using colours was cheaper and prettier than using Dora stuff so I used 1 Dora tablecloth for the table that had the backpacks and game things on it, a Dora scene setter for the back wall, I found a cheap Dora happy birthday sign with a rainbow on it and I got Dora and Boots helium balloons that I put on the Dora table. Everything else was rainbow.

For food I made rainbow cookies that I saw on pinterest, jelly cups that I made into a rainbow, honey joys, a fruit rainbow, fruit veggies, coloured popcorn, coloured lollies, it was fun to make it all so pretty. I also made som Dora, Boots and Diego choc pops that went home with the goody bags and some choc star pops for the table.

 

 

This party was so much fun to do and the kids all had such a great time, especially my little Elora the explorer :-)