New Year's Eve Balloon Countdown for Kids

Here is our 3rd Annual New Year's Eve Balloon Countdown of Activities. I will post updates at the night progresses. 

Here is a link to the activities from last year: http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2014/12/2014-new-years-eve-balloon-activity.html

4:30: Make 2016 dipping sticks from crescent rolls

5:15: Make chocolate fortune cookies

6:10: Make 2016 cheese bread

6:25: Make your own pizza or Stromboli for dinner

6:50: Decorate one cookie for Michigan State and one for 2016

7:12: Fill out the yearly questionnaire. 

7:45: Photo booth #1--Wear your favorite Michigan State attire. 

8:00: Visit the concession stand for the Michigan State game

8:25: Make pop-up fireworks

8:59: Open the surprise ball

9:28: Make fire ice cream

9:50: Play glow stick ring toss

10:18: Do the New Year's word search or color page

10:52: Photo booth #2-in Times Square

11:15: Do a 2016 painting

11:58: Silly string, balloon drop, noisemaker check 

Each surprise ball has a little toy inside an entire roll of streamer. They can't rip it. They have to unwind the entire roll. 

The cookie cakes for decoration

The Times Square banner I found at Party City. 

Glow in the dark ring toss...

Balloon drop. (This is a plastic table cloth I bought at the dollar store.)

2016 made from crescent rolls.

2016 Cheese Bread

Chocolate fortune cookies

Decorated cookies

"Buddy the Elf" Spaghetti Cupcakes

We had a "Buddy the Elf" day today. Here are the cupcakes we created instead of trying to eat real spaghetti with maple syrup and candy! 

Popsicle Stick Catapult

For one of our 25 Days of Christmas activities, we made this catapult. The original pin we saw used jumbo Popsicle sticks, but I didn't have any of those. We used regular size Popsicle sticks and they worked great. I hot glued on a little disposable cup to hold the pom poms and marshmallows we were shooting. The kids had a blast! 

Make sure the rubber band that hold the two sticks in the front together isn't too tight. There are 8 Popsicle sticks in the middle bunch. The green one that you see in the picture is stuck between the bottom two sticks from the pile of eight. 

Microwavable Hot Chocolate Play Dough

We turned our microwavable play dough recipe into hot chocolate play dough. I started by mixing 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 2 cups water, 1 Tbsp cream of tarter, 2 Tbsp oil, 1 tsp vanilla, and the contents of 3 k-cup hot chocolates. (Cocoa would work too if you don't have hot chocolate on hand.) I added a couple of drops of brown food coloring to darken it even more. 

Microwave for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave for another minute. Stir. Continue the process until most of the moisture is absorbed. It took 4 minutes and 30 seconds total before I pulled mine out and started kneading it. (It will be hot. Make sure you let it cool before the kids play with it.) 

They had a great time adding "marshmallows" and having a little hot chocolate party. 

Throw the Snowball Cardboard Game

The kids turned our Charlie Brown board into a ball throwing game, so I decided to make them a snowball game out of another tri-fold display board. We have some fake snowballs that work perfectly for this. I just drew on the figures with pencil, outlined them with Sharpie, and painted in the details. I let the kids decide how many points they get for each location.