I don’t know about you guys, but my little one is in LOVE with The Little Einstein’s.

So for her 3rd birthday, I did a Little Einstein’s themed party for her and a few friends.

For some reason, it is not easy to find Little Einstein’s stuff out there, so I thought I’d share what I did to make it work!

In this post you will find details on:

Decorations (including where I got everything)

Activities for the kids  …and…

Tons of free downloads for you to use in your party!

And if you are looking for an Elmo party page – click here!

So lets start with

Decorations!

My decorations were actually all centered around my main activity for the party, which I have described below.  The main source of inspiration for this activity came from another mom and her party – which I then tailored to fit what I had in my house and what i was able to find in the stores.  You can check out her description here.  But basically, the kids went on a mission to 4 different places: Antarctica, India, The Atlantic Ocean and Africa.

So for decorations, I had a room for each place, as well as my hallway decorated as the sky and part of it as space.

Whenever possible, I used plastic table cloths to put on the walls with matching colors according to the place, and I also got some rolls of paper with things printed on them.  I also bought cutouts and stickers to decorate each room.

**I’d like to also make one more note:  I think i got a little carried away (surprise surprise!) with these decorations.  For young toddlers, like my 3 yrd old, I think she would have been perfectly happy with VERY simple decorations to get the point across.  The activity is what was more exciting.  So don’t feel the need to go overboard!  BUT for older kids, like 5-6 year olds, I think this level of decoration is great because they notice details!  Also, there is NO way I could have gotten all this up if I didn’t have help!  So definitely make adjustments according to how many hands you will have on board to help get the place decorated!

 I bought the majority of my supplies from

1) The Dollar Store

2) A local Parent-Teacher Store

3) Target

4) Amazon.com

5) A local craft store (AC Moore)

So let’s go room by room…

AFRICA/SAFARI ROOM:

Supplies:

1) Green plastic table cloths from the dollar store.

They didn’t have plain green, but they had a football section in preparation for the Superbowl, so I bought their grass/astroturf tablecloths.  I put these on the walls to help color the walls and make it feel green.  The big key here, is get them from the Dollar Store ($1 each) not other stores ($3.50 each!).

2) Monkey and other animal cut outs from the Teacher Store  …and…

3) Jungle themed wall decals from the dollar store

I actually bought much more than you see here, and ended up not using all of it (yay for returning and getting money back!).

‘

As you can see above, I covered the TV with one of the tablecloths.

‘

I made some trees to put up around the room and made some vines to hang from them.

4) For the trees, I bought brown Kraft paper and green posterboard from the craft store.

Very roughly, I drew tree tops on the poster boards and cut them out.  I actually used my rotary cutter to cut them out, which I found to be MUCH easier than using scissors.  Then I used the craft paper to make the trunks.  Nothing fancy!  I just taped the brown paper to the back of the tree tops.

5) I used rubber shelf liner from My House =) to make the vines (except what I had at home was gray).

I just cut them into strips and then tied them together.  Then for a fun touch, hung some of the monkeys from the vines!

‘

INDIA ROOM:

This was a simple room to set up since I had most of the supplies in my closet!

1) Fabric – Saris, scarves, shawls (from my closet) to put up on the walls.

You can also find fake pashmena shawls from the Five Below store which could work.

‘

2) Paisley wall decals from the dollar store

I put these on the walls, the mirror, the fabric itself.  This would be a great way to spruce up some simple one colored shawls!

‘

3) Since we have Tablas at home, and 4 kids that were coming, I set up 4 tablas on a long sari.

If you don’t have tablas, no problem!  My original plan (until my hubby remembered the tablas) was to have play instruments out from R’s toys.  She has some rhythm sticks, drums, a guitar, saxaphone etc.  So I was going to put out 4 of those for them to play with.

‘

ATLANTIC OCEAN/UNDER THE SEA

‘

One of our rooms was supposed to be under the ocean.

1) Underwater paper – I found at the teacher store which I put up on 3 of the walls.

2) I also bought lots of fish and sea creature cut outs from the teacher store.

3) Blue streamers – Dollar store.

‘

I basically improvised with the streamers, and then put the paper up on 3 of the walls.  I used the cut outs to put up on the paper to make it feel like the ocean.

I also bought blue plastic tablecloths from the dollar store that I was planning on putting on on the ceiling to make it look like we were below the water surface….but it was 4am when we finished decorating (we started at 2:30am…) so I gave that part up!

4) Music note cut outs – from the Teacher Store

These have to do with the activity – which I have described below.

‘
‘

‘

ANTARCTICA ROOM:

Sorry, I don’t have many pictures of this one…but it was also a simple one.

1) White plastic table cloths – The Dollar Store

2) Snowflake cut outs  from the teacher store

You could also print out penguins, and other polar creatures from the internet.

SKY/SPACE

I think this might be my favorite part of the decorations!  In fact, we still have all of this up and every day R loves it =)

1) Sky/cloud paper from the teacher store

2) Cutouts from the dollar store: Suns and rainbows

3) Cutouts from the teacher store: Small planets, stars and clouds, and a large rainbow, sun and moon

4) Planet wall decals from the dollar store

5) Dark blue wrapping paper – from my basement =)

‘

We made the two long portions of the hallway into the sky, and the middle foyer/entrance area into space.

For space: We strung the stars from yarn (the one I don’t really care for) and hung those from the chandelier in the foyer.  Then we put the wall paper on the walls to make it look like space, and taped the planet cutouts onto it, as well as stuck the planet decals on the paper and front door.  Lastly, we hung the large sun and moon in the entrance as well.

‘
‘

‘

For Sky: We strung all the clouds on individual pieces of yarn and hung those throughout the hallways.  We also put the cloud paper on the walls.  The paper was 48 inches tall, and cut it in half (while still rolled up) so that we would have more of it.  Then we put all the small rainbow and sun cut outs on the walls on the paper.  We also hung the one rainbow from the hallway.

‘

‘

‘

FOOD DECORATIONS

For the food decorations, I made cupcake toppers for the cupcakes.

‘

I tried to find Little Einstein paper products, but no one had them, except for some sellers on Ebay.  I did not start planning early enough to buy from them – so if you are planning early enough – grab a party pack!  They usually have plates, napkins, table cloths, cups, party hats and balloons.

If you are in a RUSH – you can still have fun decorations.  Sorry, I don’t have pictures!  Here’s what I did:

1) I used red and yellow paper plates, cups, napkins and utensils – all from the dollar store.

If you saw my elmo party post – I have gone to MANY different stores (including the dollar store, target, party city) and found that the Dollar Store had the best prices.

2) I printed 2×2 Little Einstein stickers and put them on the paper cups – just to add a little pizzazz.

Here is a very POOR quality picture of the cup…

And here is a free download of the stickers:

Click on the picture to download a PDF of these stickers to print for your party!  Print on label paper to make stickers or print on card stock to make gift tags!

For the cupcake toppers, I made stickers using Avery 1.5 inch labels, and then used a 2 inch scalloped circle paper punch to cut out red cardstock.  I bought wood picks from the craft store (I found that flat picks work better than round toothpicks) and put a sticker on each side, with the wooden pick sandwiched in between.

‘

If you are interested, here is a free download of the cupcake toppers!

LITTLE EINSTEIN CUPCAKE TOPPERS.  Click on the image to download the PDF

For the table, I bought Little Einstein’s party hats (one of the few things still available!) from Amazon.com, as well as some other fun colored hats from target.  I put those all out on the table around the cupcakes.  I also bought generic birthday blowers (?) – I don’t really know what they are called – but the kids loved them.  And these didn’t make noise…so the parents loved them too!

I also got music note stickers and put them all over the table cloth.  Come to think of it, you could put these on the cups and other things also!

Little Einstein’s ACTIVITIES

ROCK BAND

For a small opening activity, I put out ROCK BAND for the kids to play.  I figured this would go well with our music themed Little Einstein’s party!

So we put out all of the decorations, I put the game on “No Fail” and I let it put on a random setlist.  These two settings are essential!  That way the kids don’t get frustrated when they keep failing out of a song, and the set list lets them keep going without you having to go back and set up a new song each time.  It is a little bit tedious at first to get all the players signed in and all of them set to “easy”, but once you do that, you are golden!

LITTLE EINSTEIN’S BIRTHDAY MISSION

So our main activity was a mission that the kids went on.  As I described above in the decorations section, we made 4 location roms: Africa/Safari, Antarctica, India and the Atlantic Ocean in addition to our hallway/foyer which was the sky and space.  My ideas for the mission came from this website – which I then tailored to what I had and what I found in the stores.

Basic concept:

The Little Einstein’s wanted to come to R’s birthday party to sing her happy birthday.  But along the way, they each character lost one of their “tools,” and we had to help them find each one so they could make it to the party!  I gave each child a favor bag with a sticker on it (see below for free downloadable favor bag stickers) and a homemade little einstein’s coloring book (see below for coloring book download).  We told them to take the bags with them on their mission to collect all their tools (aka favors) inside.

First we explained the mission to the kids, got in rocket and flew to Antarctica.  In Antarctica, we found that the whales borrowed June’s ballet slippers.  So we had to go there and dance our hearts out to get the whales to come back so June could have her ballet slippers back.  I basically had the room decorated, and had stuffed whale toys (from the dollar store) with a print out of ballet slippers (see bottom of page for image) tied to them.  I kept the whales hidden and ast eh kids were dancing, I threw the whales out into the room and they caught/picked them up.

Then we flew rocket to India.  When we got there, we took off our hats and scarves and put on Indian shawls.  We found that in India, the elephants borrowed Quincy’s harmonica to play in a parade!  So the kids had to play the tablas (or any other avaailable instrument) really loud to so that the elephants could hear them and come back to give quincy his harmonica.  I found little stuffed elephants at the dollar store, and bought harmonicas online at amazon and tied them to the elephants.  Just like in antarctica, I had the elephants hidden and as the kids played, we brought the elephants out one by one and made them dance towards each child.

Next we flew rocket to the atlantic ocean, where there was a bag with ponchos for them to put on so they wouldn’t get wet in the ocean.  There were also inflatable plastic microphones for them to use to sing.  In the ocean, we found that Annie lost her music notes to her birthday song and they were floating in the ocean with the fish.  So the kids had to sing into their microphones and find the music notes and collect them for Annie in their bag.  Originally, I had planned on making an oversized sheet of paper with a blank set of music lines on them for the kids to tape their notes to.  But that fell through…but you could do it if you have time!

After the ocean, we went back tot he sky to climb into rocket but found that rocket was lost!!  We found out that Leo was in Africa trying to find rocket.  So the kids all ran over to the Africa room, where there was a bag with safari hats (actually $1 cowboy hats from the dollar store) and sunglasses for them to put on to protect them form the hot sun.  When we went into Africa, they had to pat, pat, pat faster and faster to get rocket to fly back to them as fast as possible.  So I stood in front of them and led them in the patting and had the stuffed rockets hidden away.  Then while we were patting, I had the hubby fly out the rockets to give to each child.

MISSION COMPLETE!

Supplies for the activity:

1) Something to present the mission to the kids.

This could just be YOU saying it all, or it could be a poster board.  I used a powerpoint on my laptop because my cousin graciously volunteered to make it for me!

2) A bag labeled with each place name and map

See bottom of page, I have included the images I used for the maps.  For the bags, I just used old grocery paper bags with printouts of the maps taped to them as well as printouts of the place name.

3) Antarctica room bag: hats and scarves for each child

Of course you can use what you already have for this.  I used both kids and adults hats and scarves. If you don’t have enough, you could get stuff from the dollar store.

4) Antarctica room activity: Stuffed whale with a printout of ballet slippers tied to it for each kid.  I also had a soundbite to play in each room off my phone – so I searched online for whale sounds and used that.

This of course is something you can tailor to what you find in the store.  I happened to find whales at the dollar store, so that’s what I used.

5) India room bag: Scarves/shawls for each child to wear.

6) India room activity: Stuffed elephant with a harmonica tied to it.  Soundbite: Any song with tablas or that is Indian sounding.

Again you can tailor #6 to what you find in the store or online.  I bought the elephants from the dollar store and the harmonicas from amazon.

7) Atlantic Ocean bag: Ponchos (2 for $1 in the dollar store) and inflatable microphones (I bought from amazon)

8) Atlantic ocean activity: Music note cutouts from the teach store (or you can print them out yourself) and tape to ocean paper decorations.

9) Africa room bag: Safari hats and sunglasses (I bought each hat for $1 and a pack of 4 glasses at the dollar store)

10) Africa room activity: Stuffed little einstein’s rocket (I bought that from amazon as well)

11) Foamboard rocket: 2 pieces of red foamboard and a b;ack marker to draw rocket.

See below where I have put the 2 mirror image graphics that we used to draw both sides of rocket onto the foam board.

Here are some pictures to show how the activity went!

As I said, my cousin made a short and VERY SIMPLE powerpoint that explained what the mission was.  We gathered everyone into the foyer and showed them the ppt  During the presentation, we played the Little Einstein’s theme song to get them in the mood!

Then we all assembled the crew in the sky to fly rocket to antarctica.  We made these boards (see below) to represent rocket and basically had the kids get in between the two boards and pretend they were going to blast off.

I forgot to do this part, but I would tell them to 1) buckle their seat belts, 2) pat, pat, pat faster and faster to give rocket enough power to blast off!

‘

Here are the mirror image pictures we used to guide our rocket drawing.  If you want to make this more elaborate, you could use yellow and blue construction paper for the headlights and engines as well as the windshields.  We decided to go simple, and it worked just fine!

You can use this image as a reference for drawing your own rocket onto posterboard or foamboard. I have mirror images of them so you can draw both sides more easily.

You can use this image as a reference for drawing your own rocket onto posterboard or foamboard. I have mirror images of them so you can draw both sides more easily.

This is us trying to assemble everyone into rocket to fly to our first mission location.

Once we had everyone flying in rocket, we went to Antarctica!

You can see all the kids putting on their hats and scarves.  They were so cute!

Once we went in Antarctica, we started playing the whale music, and the kids started dancing around and around, and eventually we brought out the whales with the ballet slippers!

Then we flew rocket to INDIA!  Where the kids took off their winter gear and got dressed in their India scarves.

Then inside India, the kids had so much fun playing the tablas and calling the elephants back!

 Once everyone had their elephant and harmonica safely tucked away in their favo bag, we got into rocket again and headed for the Atlantic Ocean!

When we got there, the kids donned their ponchos and got ready to sing with the microphones.

Next they sang to the fishies in the ocean and then collected music notes for annie in their bag!

Lastly, we ran to Africa to help Leo find rocket!  The kids put on their hats and sunglasses…

Then they patted their little hearts out until each of their rockets came back!

That’s it!  Mission complete!

This was their completed favor bag  with all their goodies.  The only thing missing from the picture is their coloring book!

‘

I know this is a lot of stuff, but since I only had 4 bags to make it wasn’t that bad!

FREEBIES

Here are some free downloads for you:

Favor Bag stickers

Colorbook PDF + Colorful cover

Cupcake Toppers

Various Little Einstein’s pictures I collected in my search that you can use

Maps of Africa, India, Antarctica and an Ocean image to use

FAVOR BAG STICKERS.  Just write in your little einstein’s name on the sticker.  You can print them on label paper and stick to your bags, or print on regular paper and tape to the bags.

Click on image to download a high quality image to print

COLORING BOOK COVER: Print on a regular letter size sheet of paper or cardstock

COLORING BOOK PAGES: This is one PDF file of 5 coloring book pages.  I wanted to keep it small and simple, so that’s why there are so few!

2×2 PDF of LITTLE EINSTEIN STICKERS to use for decorations

CUPCAKE TOPPERS

einstein_cupcaketoppers

LITTLE EINSTEIN CUPCAKE TOPPERS.  Click on the link above the image to download

LITTLE EINSTEIN’S IMAGES

‘

‘

‘

‘

‘

‘

‘

‘

MAPS/PICTURES FOR SUPPLY BAGS FOR EACH ROOM

‘
‘

‘

‘
‘

‘