Disney World Magic Kingdom birthday party: Activities

Being that this was an indoor party (April weather is so unpredictable; the tornado sirens actually went off during her party this year -- yikes!), I couldn't really do anything crazy like rebuild Space Mountain in the backyard. (Though I'm pretty sure my husband would have loved to see me try.) Instead, I created a few low key activities to keep the kids busy.

I wanted an arty activity that didn't require a lot of supervision. Also most of the kids at the party were still pretty young, and I didn't want to worry about the mess of paint or glue. Beaded keychains seemed to be a good solution.

I searched and searched for Mickey Mouse beads, but came up empty handed. (Hey Disney, get on it!) So instead I settled on metallic star and pony beads. What kid doesn't love shiny things?

I cut some pieces of plastic lanyard and tied them to key rings to start them off. I also had some stretchy bracelet string available, but I'm not sure if anyone made a bracelet.

And it seems as though stars became a running theme in this party's activities.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a single photo of this activity in action at the actual party. Luckily, Elise agreed to appear in the dramatic re-creation of the whole thing. In non-party clothes.

This is a little something I call... wait for it... "When you fish upon a star."

(Oh yes, I hear the groans! I'm actually not such a pun fan myself, but after I thought of the title, I couldn't not use it.) I made a couple of fishing poles and a bunch of magnetized star shapes.

The goal is to catch the stars with the fishing pole and collect them in the baskets. It was less of a game and more something just to keep the kids busy, but you could certainly take the concept and turn it into a game with a timer or point values assigned to the stars or something.

See the fishing game how-to.

And then when the kids became completely restless, we broke out the chalk and they all converged like moths to a flame. Always good to have a plan B. (My plan C was to send them all upstairs to the playroom, but we didn't get that far before it was time to go.)