This cake was by far the easiest cake to make of all the birthday cakes that I have made. The trees on the cake were made out of gum paste. This was the first time that I have played with gum paste. I think that I need to do some more playing before I get a better grasp of how to form objects out of it. The top of the cake is covered with homemade marshmallow fondant. I had come across some pre-colored fondant in brown tones that I used to cut out the giraffe spots and then added some plastic toy jungle animals around the outside edge of the cake.
I had plans for a couple of activities but the box fortress was a last minute suggestion by my husband. We had just remodeled our kitchen and had all these boxes leftover.
The boxes were a HUGE hit!
As soon as guests drove in and the kids saw the boxes being put together that is where they first ran to!
Being a nice warm summer day in the Northeast I had also purchased a bunch of water guns for the kids to play with, which was also a lot of fun. Of course several thought it fun to spray the host!
One the activities I had planned was "pin the tail on the giraffe" The giraffe was one that I painted on a large piece of cardboard. I used an appropriate picture of Melman the giraffe character on Madagascar.
Here the kids are attempted to pin the tail onto "Melman the giraffe"
I had also come up with a quiz for the adults and some of the older kids who might be interested. The quiz of course was on giraffe facts. A couple of my girlfriends had too much fun while completing the quiz and were coming up with some crazy answers to the questions.
Some games/activities that we didn't play:
I also made some zebra and wild cat tails that would velcro around the kids waist so that they could play a game called "Catch the Lion by the Tail" or Tag. The first game is like "duck duck goose". The lion walks around the circle of kids and says lion, lion...then randomly touches another and says hyena. The lion must make it back to the hyenas spot before the hyena grabs the lions tail. Of course the names of the animals can be changed.
Another game is called "Hungry Lions" This is a game of predator and prey. Some kids are lions some are zebras. The game starts when an adult yells feeding time. The lions must tag a zebra. Once a zebra is caught it must stand still until another zebra has crawled in between their legs. The game is played until all the zebras are caught or until the kids are tired out.
"We're Going on a Bear Hunt" song was another option that I was thinking about doing with the kids because it has a lot of fun sounds and movements for the kids to do along with you. I came across a youtube video of Michael Rosen performing the song that we thoroughly enjoyed watching.
Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
We ended the day with cake and gifts. It was a beautiful day that we got to share with our many friends/family!
~Laura
