Monday, November 12, 2012

An Owl Party for 3rd Graders

"Peel" just had a birthday and she wanted an owl theme.  (Surprise, surprise--she was an owl for Halloween two years in a row!)  The day started with sending her to school with two dozen Owl S'Mores.

Owl S'Mores.  Start hoarding the candy corn now if you plan to make them!

I found the recipe here, but had to adapt it for making huge quantities efficiently (and I needed to be able to transport them to school with a minimum of squishing).  I used the same ingredients, but after some delicious research I found a good way to mass produce these.

After picking up the girls from school, we started the party at a nearby nature center.  It's beautiful and I thought the naturalists there might chat with the girls, but the staff were way too burned out (it was a Friday afternoon, after all!) and the girls just wanted to chill.

Next we took the flock of girls home where we served Aldi's Asiago Cheese Take N' Bake pizza (only $4.99 each and they are HUGE!) and settled down to watch Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (you guessed it:  an owl movie).

When it was time to do the cake and presents, the Owl Mommy and Babies cupcakes were a big hit!

Mama Owl and Babies:  You can modify the toppings if it's too hard or too expensive to find everything the recipe lists.
After a while we retired to the backyard with some glow necklaces from Target and a bonfire with S'Mores.  As each girl left the party she received an  owl goodie bag with random junk PLUS a super cool compass necklace thingy (which seemed sort of outdoorsy-ish if not totally owl-related!).


Can't get much cheaper than brown paper bags...The owl tops can be used as a mask, too.


How to Make a Ga-Zillion Owl S'Mores

I started with this recipe and adapted it.







We watched carefully so that we didn't nuke the ingredients (leave them in just enough to make the yellow melts soft).

Then quick!  quick!  Stick those chocolate chips in!


Using the good old standby of icing-as-glue trick.



1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Lay out graham crackers.
2.  Cut marshmallows in half, open the halves and lay on top of the graham cracker (sticky side down).  Place in oven on the center rack for 5 minutes.
3.  Take out just long enough to place two yellow candy melts on the marshmallows.  Return to the oven for about 1 minute--just long enough for the candy melt to be getting soft.
4.  Place a chocolate chip on top of each yellow candy melt (hurry and do it while it's warm!).
5.  To attach the candy corn beak, use a blob of plain frosting as glue (you can do this later, when the tray has cooled off).

Mama Owl & Babies

Check out the recipe, but then also see what you have on hand.  I really didn't need to spend the time or money to find exactly the same toppings.  And now I have a lot of left over candy tempting me.......






Owl Goodie Bags

I'm a fan of any party decoration or element that the kids can work on themselves.  Also, I like the fact that the girls can save the owlie eyes to make a mask (you could always use foam instead of construction paper if you want them to really last).







2 comments:

  1. Super cute! That was a lot of work to organize!

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  2. I wish I had seen this before Bethany's party! Owls are her favorite animal! I'll try to remember this for next year. It's a really cute idea!

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