Labor of Lego Love part 2

Just to recap: my elder son is obsessed with NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover, launching Nov. 25th. He’s also a Lego fanatic. So this year we combined his two interests in a “Lego Mars Rover” birthday party (his idea).

I found a lot of great resources for Lego parties on the internet and adapted them to our needs with the help of my Mom and husband.

Our first project was crafting goody bags. We found blue and red gift bags at Walmart and decorated them with coordinating construction paper circles to make Lego bricks. I filled the goody bags with miniature bubbles (Target), a Lego Creator pack and Lego Minifigure Cake Pops. I found a Lego Fun Favor pack online, which included 8 Creator packs as well as a free admission to Legoland and VIP Club membership for each child.

Using construction paper, we made the banner below. I started by creating minifigures using the Lego Minifigure pattern. Then I trimmed pieces of construction paper to make them the same size as the minifigure. I cut circles out of construction paper and added them to the bricks before laminating each brick and minifigure. We decided to outline the circles on the bricks using a black Sharpie to make them stand out. We attached the Lego bricks and minifigures using brads and laminated tabs of paper.

I also bought square yellow plates at Target, and spruced them up by gluing a rounded rectangle to the top. Using a Sharpie, I added a face, and — voila — minigure plates.

I found Lego dot-to-dot pages on the Lego Web site; these served as our gathering activity as children arrived. Once everyone arrived, our first game was “Musical Bricks.” I had made several more construction paper bricks, one less than the number of children present, and taped them to the floor. The children marched around in a circle to music. When I paused the music, they had to scramble to stand on a brick. The child left without a brick was out. I removed a brick and started the music again, repeating this until we had a winner.

Meanwhile, my husband hid four construction paper minifigure cutouts, which I had made while making the banner. The children had to hunt for the minifigures in a game of “I Spy the Lego Guy.” We also played “Who’s Got the Lego.” Instructions for both can be found at Delia Creates by clicking…..here.

We also did a Lego build activity. Our goal was to build a spaceship to blast off from Mars. I gave each child three bricks and 15 seconds to add his or her Legos to the Lego base, building upon what the children before him had done. At the end, I added a couple of Lego flames and an astronaut, and we simulated a launch.

Finally, we made “alien goop” using borax, food coloring and school glue. I had bought some small containers for the children to put the goo in, so they could add it to their goody bags. For the recipe, click……here. I doubled it, and it made enough for 8 children.

All in all, we had a lot of fun!

Sources:

Delia Creates: http://deliacreates.blogspot.com/2011/01/lego-birthday-party.html

Crunchy Catholic Mama: http://crunchycatholicmomma.blogspot.com/2011/07/lego-party.html