Your kids will enjoy a Hawaiian-theme party at any time of the year
You don't have to live in Hawaii to throw a great luau party for kids. With a little research and imagination, you can find all the things you need to entertain, amuse, involve and feed your group of party kids. Here are some easy and inexpensive suggestions to help you get started planning your duck luau party. Does this Spark an idea?
Planning
For a successful Hawaiian-style luau party, you should either have nice, sunny outdoor weather or a climate-controlled indoor space with a pool. Even if it's 20 below outside, you can celebrate your occasion with a luau if you rent an indoor pool space at your local YMCA or health club. Off-season pricing is usually cheaper than mid-summer, so you may end up saving a bundle if you host the occasion in winter.
For outdoor pools, you'll have to plan well in advance, as the summertime is their busiest season. Still, many outdoor pool spaces have times set aside for private parties, so you'll just need to get your event on their calendar several weeks or months in advance.
Invitations
If your luau will take place in the summertime, be sure to get your invitations out early, as many families have travel plans or sports activities that may conflict with your celebration date. Give everyone advance notice to hold the date.
You can create your own invitations on the computer using card-making software, or cut and paste Hawaiian-themed shots from travel magazines, substituting your child's face on the body of a hula dancer, for example. Or, create miniature grass skirts on paper dolls made out of construction paper, rubber bands and shredded grocery bags. You can involve your child in the invitation-making project, which will give her a sense of control in the party planning, as well as heighten the excitement for the luau.
Supplies
There are plenty of websites that offer inexpensive luau party favors. Purchase a package of grass skirts, rubber party ducks wearing Hawaiian shirts, leis, cocktail umbrellas and decorative straws for the occasion. If you're feeling ambitious and have the time, you can easily create your own grass skirts out of painted and shredded newsprint or plastic bags. Use colorful duct tape, paper or fabric to create a waistband, and string the "grass" on with yarn, dental floss or plastic.
Decorations and Music
Make fake palm trees out of gift paper dowels and painted, shredded newspapers. Just fold the painted paper several time, cut even strips all the way around, and attach the bottom to the inside cardboard tube from a gift wrapping paper roll. The strips will fall open to look like palm trees. Make paper maché coconuts by blowing up balloons and covering them with newspaper strips and glue. When they dry, pop the balloons inside, and paint the outsides brown.
Buy pineapples at the store, cut out the insides, and use the outsides for centerpieces on tables. Cut up the fruit, and serve it in large seashells with a cherry and colorful umbrella on top.
Colorful toy ukuleles make fun party favors and add a decorative touch, as well. Place them in front of place settings, along with an easy-to-read chord chart for a Hawaiian song. Purchase a Hawaiian-themed CD, and play it as background music for the party.
Activities and Food
Teach a hula dance, and give the kids plenty of time to practice before having a hula contest. Give out small prizes to the winners---rubber duckies, extra leis, fake boar tooth bracelets.
If you have pool access, and the kids know swim, have pool party games, such as the "greased watermelon" contest. Divide the kids into two teams, rub butter all over a watermelon, then drop it into a pool. The team that retrieves it first gets to eat it. Be sure to have your camera handy for this one.
Have a limbo contest. Use a piece of bamboo or a long stick to create a barrier. Have the kids form a dance line, conga-style, and as they dance around, lower the stick a bit each time they go under it. The person who is able to dance under the stick without falling or touching the ground wins.
Instead of a traditional pig roast, have a weenie roast, followed by a marshmallow roast. You can buy brightly colored marshmallows for the occasion. As a side dish, offer cut fruit kabobs on toothpicks.
Provide juice boxes or a large bowl of tropical fruit juice for the party guests, and if you are really feeling ambitious, you could use a blender to make virgin coladas.
Tags: luau party, grass skirts, create your, feeling ambitious, have pool, painted shredded, palm trees