Birthday Party Idea for Nine Year Old Girl

It's All About 9! was the birthday party theme. 

It's All About NINE!!! 

It was hard to come up with a themed party for our daughter turning nine years old.  So, we created our own theme; It's All About Nine!  My daughter LOVED it and I think that her friends did too!

Here is what we did:
My daughter invited nine friends to our house for the party. The party began at 5 p.m. and ended at 9 p.m.!  It seems like a long party, but we kept the girls busy and had very little downtime.  To showcase the theme and get all of the attendees involves, we created an activity punch board using cardboard, wrapping paper, tissue paper, nine plastic cups, and balloons.  We placed slips of paper; each with an "It's All About Nine" activity into each cup (you can find those activities below).  We tried to mix low energy, quiet activities and high energy and loud activities.  I saw the punch board idea in a Family Fun Magazine.  Here is how I created ours:   I traced the round open side of the cup onto the cardboard nine times and cut out the circles using a blade.  I then attached wrapping paper to the cardboard (to look pretty) and cut out the holes.  Put the slips of paper with the activities into each cup and placed tissue paper around the cups (secured the ends with masking tape) and then carefully placed the cups into the holes in the cardboard.  The top of the cup was flush with the cardboard. The bottom of the cup sticks out the back.  I used additional cardboard to make sides so that you couldn't see the cups sticking out.  I also used nine balloons to "jazz" up the board a bit.  For the party, each friend got to punch through the tissue paper and pull out a slip of paper with the "All About Nine" activity.  They LOVED punching through the tissue paper and reading aloud the activity!   Because we didn't know the order of the activities, all nine activities were ready to go.  I used a seperate room so that I could lay-out everything to grab and go.  

Here are the "All About Nine" Activities:

Nine Second No Smile:  Can you hold a straight face?  How about now?  Form a circle facing each other.  Put a sticker on your nose and try not to smile for nine seconds.  My husband and I did silly actions as only parents can do to "help" the girls laugh.  

Nine Object Stack:  Each person receives nine objects (we used edible items--lots of candy items and a water bottle).  Can you stack 'em and keep 'em steady for nine seconds?  Keep trying!  You have nine minutes. I had the nine items pre-packaged and ready to go for each girl.

Dressed to the Nines:  Are you ready for a photo shoot?  Dress to impress with the gear provided.  Smile and pose for the camera!  We gathered all of our dress-up clothes and added enormous eye glasses for fun.  We also had two empty picture frames that the girls could pose with (super trendy right now).  It was so funny and so fun to watch them be so silly!

Nine Color Nail Polish Necklace:  one of my favorite activities from this blog!!!  Check it out! Who has heard of a nine year old girl that doesn't like nail polish?  Not me.  All the fun, but very little mess when using the nail polish as an art project.  Metal washers, nine colors of nail polish, colored twine, toothpicks, and a paper plate to keep the mess contained. 

Goofy Nine Pin:  Like bowling and Angry Birds combined.  We used nine huge outdoor bowling pins and placed them up and down and all around--hitting one should make some of the others tumble over too.  My husband made an alley out of laminated flooring!  The girls used a soft ball to knock down the pins!  We didn't keep score.  It was just for fun!

Nine Foot Geyser:  An outdoor science experiment.  What happens when you add a sleeve of Mentos to a 2-liter bottle of diet cola...  A nine foot geyser!  We also had each girl try their own mini version with 12 oz bottles and Mentos.  This experiment doesn't last long, but the "oohs" and "aahs" we heard made it worth the investment!

Drop Nine Art:  Draw, drop nine, let dry and wear it!  Using permanent markers in a variety of colors, we had each girl draw a picture on a white t-shirt.  I put the t-shirt around a large plastic bucket and used a rubber band to keep the t-shirt tight so it would be easier to draw.  The girls then sprinkled nine caps full of rubbing alcohol into their t-shirt and watched the colors blend.  It was really fun, but the FUMES were strong.  We did this activity outside!  Our original idea was to have the girls draw on a small piece of cotton fabric and use nine drops of rubbing alcohol and them frame it.  But our daughter wanted t-shirts, so that's what we did.

Letter "N" Nine Object Scavenger Hunt:  Can you fin these items in the house?  Here are the items we used:
1.  Notebook
2.  Nail Polish Remover
3.  Neck Tie
4.  Nutter Butters (cookies)
5.  Nancy Drew Book, The Secret Of the Old Clock (our daughter's favorite)
6.  Nutella
7.  Nets for catching butterflies
8.  Nerds, the candy
9.  Number Nine in our daughter's favorite color-blue!

Nine Page Story:  Everyone gets to write and illustrate a page in this Nine Page Story.  It began with Once upon a time...

PAGE ONE:  Once upon a time there was a nine- year-old named_______________________.  She had ___________________hair and __________________

 eyes.  She liked to ______________ and __________________________.  She decided to go for a ___________________ over to a friend’s house.

PAGE TWO THROUGH NINE:

She said “Hi” to her friend named ___________________________, “Let’s do something fun!”  So they decided to ___________________________________ and ____________________________________________.  They had a good time!  They decided to invite another friend.  And off they went!