Dora Birthday Party

For my youngest daughter's 3rd birthday we decided to have a Dora theme. She absolutely loved Dora at the time. We took ideas from lots of the parties on http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/. We printed an invitation from Nick Jr. and photocopied it for everyone. We planned to have a Dora Adventure with our goal being to find the cupcakes for my daughter's birthday. I made a sign for the front door welcoming everyone to the party. When the kids first arrived, I had them all come to our basement where they got to make binoculars out of toilet paper rolls. I had all sorts of Dora stickers and felts for them to decorate them with. When everyone had arrived, I told the kids that I wanted to show them my daughter's cupcakes. I had a large bin in our basement that I told them they were in. Inside the bin, I had made a poster size picture of Swiper that we taped to the lid of the bin. I had my husband outside of the basement with a walkie talkie and the other walkie talkie was in the bin. When I went to open the bin to show the kids the cupcakes, Swiper was in the bin and there were no cupcakes!! The kids all screamed when they saw Swiper and I asked them what they were supposed to say when they saw him. They all started to yell "Swiper, No Swiping", but my husband interupted over the walkie talkie saying "You're too late, I've swiped the cupcakes and taken them to my secret hiding place. You'll never find them now!" The kids all thought that it was Swiper talking. I told them we had to find the cupcakes and asked if they knew where Swiper's hiding place was. They said no, so I asked "Who do we ask for help when we don't know which way to go?". They all yelled out "MAP". I then handed them all a map I had drawn and laminated with mactac.
I told them that the map says we need to go through the Fiesta Forest, over Rainbow Bridge and then we'll find Swiper's secret hiding place where he has the cupcakes. I told them we needed to look for stars along the way. I had bought the Dora CD with all the theme songs, so we played the songs as they left on their adventure. I had separated off parts of the house so they couldn't always see what was coming next. When they left our basement, they had to go up the stairs which I had decorated with green balloons, streamers and trees out of butcher paper with construction paper leaves. I had hidden stars so that they could all find one as they went up the stairs.Leaving the basement... FIESTA FOREST - Senior Toucan, tree with balloons as leaves, green balloons as vinesMy Palm treeI had streamers blocking off the living room so that they wouldn't go in there when they got to the top of the stairs. I asked them where does Dora usually put the stars she finds. In her star pocket of course. I drew a Dora with a Star pocket on her backpack on posterboard. We then played "Stick the Star in the StarPocket". I blindfolded the kids and had them do this.After this game, map showed that we had to go find Rainbow Bridge. This was in my living room. I had a blue sheet that I layed on the floor for the lake and I made the bridge out of poster board. I cut different colour strips and taped them together. But hold on, we couldn't just cross Rainbow Bridge - it had pieces missing. We needed to fix the bridge first. I had blacked out different shapes - hearts, stars, squares, rectangles, triangles etc. on the bridge and had the corresponding pieces cut out. I gave each child a shape and they had to find it on the bridge and tape it on. When everyone had put their shape in place we crossed the bridge and saw a tunnel (made out of a large box) with a Swiper sign on it. We had the kids climb through the tunnel and they arrived in my kitchen where they found the cupcakes on the table! They had done it!!!! They were all so excited to have found Swiper's hiding place!
It was time for cupcakes and juice. I made cupcakes and found Dora and Diego ring toppers at Scoop n Save. This was very simple and easy after all the other preparations I had done. After cake time, we had gifts and then it was time for the kids to go home. For their goody bags, they all got to take home their map (they could use it as a place mat), their binoculars, their ring from the cupcakes, Dora fruit snack, a coloring book I made with different Dora coloring pages and some other candy. This was such a fun party to plan and the kids had such a great time!