A Birthday Party Inspired by the Book Go, Train, Go! and Thomas and Friends

A few weeks after we celebrated my eldest son's 5th birthday last year, we celebrated my younger son's 2nd birthday. Since the celebrations were close to each other, I planned for something low key. Our goal is to simply celebrate his uniqueness and this milestone.

 

I was at first torn between two themes or two books, both of which are my youngest son's favorites. The first book is Go, Dogs, Go! and the second is Go, Train, Go! I decided to make it mainly a train-themed birthday party with Thomas the Tank Engine as inspiration. But I also included a dog in the cake design since my son loves dogs and there's also a dog in the book Go, Train, Go!

I was supposed to write this blog post last year days after the party but I got busy with so many things. Since my younger son's birthday is just around the corner again, I've decided to finally write/finish this blog post.

Let me share how I made his birthday last year memorable and according to the theme that he loves.

I started mindstorming months before his birthday. I jotted my ideas in my online notebook. Then, close to his birthday, I finalized the details and started working on them or executing them.

I contacted the same cake supplier who supplied my eldest son's cake and cupcakes during his Rockstar party. I like relying on the same suppliers once I find good and trustworthy ones. It lessens my stress due to uncertainties.

I also contacted the same caterers/food delivery service: Amber for spaghetti and pork barbecue and Chooks-to-go for the roasted chicken. We ordered beef caldereta from Goldilocks. For the ice cream in cups, I reserved and bought them from the minimart near our house just like what I did during my eldest son's birthday party. I also bought pichi-pichi from a nearby branch of Don Benito.

The cake and cupcake table set up with the birthday banner minus the toy train
and the ice cream in cups which should be in the no mud cargo truck. ;)

Food delivery services are party life savers!

I bought the other sweet treats and the contents of the loot bag from the grocery just like in the previous parties I organized.

Below are the additional treats we served which were inspired by the story in the book. I arranged them in such a way that they would look like cargoes being pulled by Thomas the Tank Engine. The toy train is my birthday gift to my son. It doubled as décor on the day of the party.

Additional treats: Sticko logs, biscuits covered with milk chocolate (from cows),
and cocktail hot dogs. Not in photo are the chocolate ice cream in cups (no mud!)

Loot bag contents

I sourced other lot bag contents from different malls. Looking for Thomas the Tank Engine items is not as easy as finding Lightning McQueen items. When my eldest son's birthday party theme was Cars, my mom and I did not have a great time looking for giveaways. They were in abundance. There were many choices. But with Thomas the Tank Engine, the stocks were limited and I had to visit several malls to check which ones have these items. Thank God we eventually found some items at Market Market and Festival mall in one of our visits.

 

I was glad that we found Thomas the Tank Engine paper plates and cups, too! Then, I bought blue plastic cups for the adult guests. We served ice tea and minute maid juice to the adults and ready-to-drink juice to the kids.

As for the invitation, I just made one myself and created an event in Facebook where I invited immediate family members, ninongs and ninangs and close family friends. I emailed the e-invite to those who are not on Facebook frequently. I also sent text messages to make sure that guests got my email or saw the Facebook event I made.

Here's the invitation I made on Power Point.

It was a good thing I found a Thomas the Tank Engine Happy Birthday banner. I just made additional decors in line with the party theme like signs and food labels. These were inspired by the posts I read in the internet.

I ordered balloons and rented tables and chairs from the same supplier I got for my eldest son's birthday party. I'm really glad to have discovered that there's a supplier/provider for these items within our village. No need to pay extra charges for transportation costs and they can easy deliver. No worries about traffic or delays.

It was just a small/intimate party but we enjoyed our time together. My husband was still in Sweden that time so we used Skype to let him "join" in the celebration.

Mateo with his Ninang Raquel.

Mateo with his Ninong Pete and Ninang Ana.

After singing the birthday song to Mateo and letting him blow the candle on his cake, we had our early dinner already.

I did not prepare games anymore. I only prepared coloring pages related to the theme and crayons to keep the kids occupied while the adults mingled and chatted with each other. Then, Mateo and I read the book Go, Train, Go! to our guests.

The Thomas the Tank Engine coloring pages kept the kids busy.

Mateo entertained his guests by reading to them Go, Train! Go!

  

I believe that birthdays should be celebrated even in simple ways because it's one way of showing our gratitude for the gift of life and for celebrating the gift that the person is in our lives. Birthdays happen only once a year. It's a great opportunity to make our loved ones feel extra special, important and loved! (Of course, we should strive to make them feel special, loved and important every day.)

Time flies so fast! In a week, my son Mateo will be turning 3 years old. Watch out for my next post where I will detail my preparation for his 3rd birthday party. It's a construction-themed party this time! 

 

Letter of the Week Activities with the Letter B

It has been a B as in beautiful week with the letter B for me and my sons last week!

 

Let me share with you the activities that we had.

 

1. Finger-painting of letter O by Mateo - We always kick off our Letter of the Week Activity with finger-painting by my 2-year-old son. It's very simple but effective, relaxing and therapeutic.

 

 

2. Painting the Life Cycle of the Butterfly - I already had this idea right after we bought a copy of the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. But I had to postpone it for some time when I have decided to do Letter of the Week activities with my sons. Having the letter B as our Letter of the Week was just the perfect time for it.

This was made by Mateo.

 

 

Here's how we did it step-by-step:

     a. I folded a bond paper into 4 parts/quadrants. Each child was given his own bond paper.

 

     b. I painted my son's hand with green paint using a brush.

 

     c. Then, I helped my son press his hand on the first quadrant of the bond paper.

 

     d. Next, I helped/guided my son as he dipped one finger on green paint again and made a series of dots that are joined to each other like a caterpillar.

 

     e. After finishing the body of the caterpillar, I helped/guided my son in dipping another finger in red paint and in making a head for the caterpillar.

 

     f. While waiting for the leaf (hand print) and the caterpillar to dry, I helped/guided my son again in painting a cocoon using his fingers. I helped/guided him in dipping his finger on brown paint and pressing it on the bond paper to form the pattern of a cocoon.

 

     g. We cleaned his hand/fingers first before painting them with his chosen color for the wings of the butterfly. I used a paint brush to paint my sons' palms.

 

      h. Then, I helped each child press his palm gently on the last quadrant. You can use both hands/palms to stamp hand prints for the wings or you can just use the same hand to do that. If you use the same hand though, you need to coat the same palm with paint again before pressing it the second time. 

 

       i. I waited for the paint to dry to add details to the caterpillar, an egg on the leaf hand print and additional colors and the body and details on the butterfly.

 

       j. Once dry, I helped/guided my son as he dipped his finger on white paint and pressed it on the green leaf.

 

       k. I assisted my son in drawing the eyes, smile and antennae on the caterpillar.

 

       l. I helped/assisted my son in finger-painting the body of the caterpillar and eventually finger painting and drawing the additional details.

 

This was made by Yanthy.

Note: My eldest son worked independently on this art activity. He would simply watch what I was doing with his younger brother whose hand I am holding/guiding most of the time. I asked him to imitate what I was doing and I would just intervene if necessary. ;)

 

I explained our art activity briefly, relating it to the story in our book. We capped our painting activity by singing the butterfly song that we learned from one of our helpers. It's actually spelling out the word BUTTERFLY. :)

 

3. Making a Bulldozer Toy Out of Paper Cut-out - I recently found and bought a book from the Book Sale that's about Diggers. It's an activity book about construction toys and areas. I was delighted when I saw it because I know that my sons would like it. In one of its pages, there's a bulldozer toy that can be cut-out and formed. I proceeded to cut the parts of the toy after we finished our painting activity on the life cycle of a butterfly. The boys were very happy to play with the paper bulldozer as soon as I finished it. 

 

 

4. Reading books about Things that Start with the Letter B - Aside from reading the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we read books about bulldozers, buses, bees and stories from the Bible. As usual, we used props (their toys) as we read the books.

 

 

5. Serving and Eating Food that Start with the Letter B - Some of the food that we had starting with the letter B last week were the following: banana with peanut butter wrapped in tortilla, beef balls, eggnog biscuits which my sons imagined to be hosts (Body of Christ during their pretend play of the Holy Mass), and bangus or milkfish sinigang.

 

 

6. Bible Verse Writing Activity - This is part of our Catholic ABC Program. Aside from the art and reading activities that we have each week, I make sure that I introduce a Bible verse to my sons, particularly to my eldest son. I use this activity as an opportunity to practice my eldest son's listening, writing and spelling skills. Last week, our Bible verse was taken from John 6:51.

 

 

7. Playing with Toys that Start with the Letter B and Pretend Play - The boys played again with their construction toys that start with the letter B (bulldozer, backhoe, bike). After tracing his finger on the letter B puzzle mat, I removed the letter B and filled it with my son's building blocks. Both of my sons love playing with building blocks! They can play with these toys for hours, imagining scenarios and creating them using the building blocks. They also played bowling , basketball and my younger son played with his smaller balls.

  

Aside from their favorite pretend play with building blocks (wherein they pretend to have a parking lot/building), they also pretended to celebrate the Holy Mass. My eldest son pretended to be the priest most of the time, doubling as musician/pianist and choir sometimes. My younger son pretended to be a reader (lector/commentator), parishioner or Mass-goer, choir member and sometimes priest also. He enjoyed pretending to receive Holy Communion (he liked the eggnogs!).
 

My eldest son pretending to be a priest giving Holy Communion to our helper.

My toddler pretending to carry the Bible
during the entrance procession at the start of the Mass.

 

8. B as in Bethlehem Craft - This craft activity is in line with our Bible verse for the week as well. I learned while I was researching for the most appropriate verse for our letter of the week that Bethlehem means house of bread. That discovery affirmed my plans to make our DIY Bethlehem/Nativity décor. I recommend that you read this interesting article about Jesus as the Living Bread that came down from heaven and how perfect that He was born in Bethlehem.

 

I did the same DIY Bethlehem décor/craft using popsicle sticks with my toddler which I did with my eldest son last year.

 

Let me share the steps as well for this craft:

 

     a. I simply asked my son to paint 6 popsicle sticks with green paint.

 

     b. Then, I asked him to paint 1 popsicle stick with white paint, guiding him to leave a space for the face of Baby Jesus.

 

     c. We set aside these popsicle sticks to air-dry.

 

    d. I then painted cream colored paint to serve as faces to the yellow and blue popsicle sticks as well as the white popsicle stick. I let these air-dry once more.

 

     e. While letting them dry, I drew and cut out a star from a scrap of bond paper.

 

     f. I asked my toddler to squeeze silver glitter glue all over it. Then, we let it dry once more.

 

    g. When all the popsicle sticks were dry, I glued them to form a stable and inserted the sticks that represent the Holy Family. I broke the sticks that represent Mama Mary and Jesus so that they would be shorter than the stick that represented St. Joseph.

 

    h. When the faces that I painted were already dry, I drew the details using a sign pen. I also glued the star on top of the stable.

 

We hanged this décor in our Christmas tree afterwards.

 

This year, I did a different Bethlehem craft with my eldest son. I asked him to paint a milk carton with brown paint so we can use it as stable for our toilet paper tube characters in our DIY Nativity set. My toddler also helped out in painting the parts of the manger for this set. Then, I took charge of making B as in Baby Jesus out of the other half of the toilet paper tube we used for the manger. I used left over yellow paper to cut out the hay for the manger.

 

 

9. Flag-making Activity - My sons made the flags of Bahrain and Bangladesh.

 

 

It has been another B as in busy week for us but it was fun-filled and blessed especially since our week was capped with the All Saints' Day party of our homeschool group where my sons came as San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila and St. Dominic de Guzman.

 

My two sons as St. Dominic de Guzman and San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila.

 

Today, we kicked off our new letter of the week - the letter C! Watch out for my post where I will summarize and enumerate our activities this week! 

Letter of the Week Activities with Letter O

It has been an outstanding week for me and my sons as we did activities related to the letter O last week!

 

 

Let me enumerate the what we did. 

 

1. Finger-painting of letter O by Mateo - Just like in the past letter of the week activities, my two-year-old finger-painted the upper case and lower case of our letter of the week on a bond paper. He did this after tracing his finger on the pencil mark on the bond paper and on the O foam letter that we have.

 

 

 

2. O as in Owl hand painting - I found a very cute owl hand painting internet so I thought of doing it as well with the boys. After doing this painting, I let my toddler watch a video of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star again where an owl was part of it. He liked that video very much.

 

 

 

3. O as in Oman flag - This one was part of our United Nations activity since the letter O fell on the same week that this event is celebrated. You may read more about our United Nations activities in detail in one of my previous posts.

 

 

 

4. O as in Olaf art activity. - My sons love the movie Frozen very much! They simply can't get over it. So, I thought that they would be delighted to make a snowman. ;) I asked my boys to trace ovals and circles (using some of their oval and round toys) on a bond paper to make Olaf's body parts. I asked my eldest son to cut the ovals and circles. Then, I asked the boys to glue Olaf's body parts (guiding them how to do it) on a blue bond paper. After letting the cut outs to air dry, I showed my eldest son how to put the other details on Olaf's body by guiding my toddler's hand as we drew the face and buttons of Olaf. 

 

 

 

5. Storytelling about St. Olaf of Sweden - Since it was almost All Saints' Day when we started with the letter O, I thought of researching for Saints whose names start with our letter of the week. I was delighted to find out with the help of the internet that there's a Saint named Olaf and that he was from Sweden! I excitedly shared this with the boys who were very happy to learn about it as well. Too bad we didn't find a photo of St. Olaf of Sweden. We only saw a photo of St. Olaf of Norway.

 

6. O as in Ocean Liner Pretend Play using folded paper - Since it was still United Nations' week and the letter O was our letter of the week, we taught the boys how to make ocean liners/boats using folded paper. They let their ocean liners sail on the oceans in our maps and globe. As part of our geography lessons, I asked my eldest son to look for the oceans in our globe. He found all four - Pacific, Indian, Atlantic and Arctic oceans. After letting their ocean liners sail on the map and globe, we gave them water in a basin to let their paper ocean liners to sail there.

 

 

7. Eating Food that Reminded Us of the Letter O - We served pancakes with the letter O written on top of them (using chocolate syrup) on the morning of October 31. Then, on All Saints' Day, I prepared Chicken in Coconut and Orange Sauce as part of our celebration.
 

The next set of activities were done in relation to our lesson on Obedience. We did a number of activities because I've decided that O will also stand for Obey. We used the materials from the Kids of Integrity website for most of our activities on Obedience.

 

7. The first activity we had on O as in Obey is making an obedience poster. We painted the boys' feet and stamps them foot prints on a cartolina to symbolize that they will follow Jesus' command. I asked my eldest son to write the Jesus' words from John 14:15 on top of our poster. Then, at the bottom, I asked him to write Jesus' command to children to obey their parents. I explained to them the Bible verses to them and told them that I will stick hearts into the poster every time they obey something that I ask them to do. Then, on Saturday (during our All Hallows' Eve and All Saints' Day celebrations), they will get a reward if there will be at least 10 hearts stuck on their side of the poster. I told them that their reward will be a donut that looks like a letter O. This excited the boys and they kept reminding me the past week to stick heart cut outs in the poster every time they obey something. I printed hearts in a pink bond paper and cut them. Then, I glued a heart each time the boys obeyed something that I asked them to do in the past week.

 

 

 

8. Science Experiment to Make Shiny Coins - This was also adapted from the Kids of Integrity website lesson on obedience. I asked the boys to look for dirty coins that we will clean. We got some cotton buds and vinegar. I first asked them to dip their cotton bud in vinegar and clean their dirty coin using these two. Then, I acted that I forgot to tell them to mix salt into the vinegar to make our cleaning solution more effective. I added salt to the vinegar and asked the boys to mix until the salt is dissolved. Then, I gave them new cotton buds and asked them to dip these in the mixture and use that to clean the coins. They were very happy to see their coins become cleaner and shinier this time! I explained that the experiment as recommended in the website then stuck their shiny coins on our obedience poster.

 

 

 

9. Storytelling on Obedience through the Story of the Mommy Bear and her 3 cubs - I read the story from the Kids of Integrity website to the boys and used our bear stuff toys and some pillows (as cave and wolves) as props in telling the story to them. The boys participated by moving the little bears while I' telling the story.

 

10. Storytelling on Obedience through Noah's Ark plus Pretend Play - We also reviewed the story of Noah and how he obeyed God even though God's command seemed strange and though people were laughing at him as he obeyed God's command to build an ark. We used our stuff toys again and the boys' carpenter tools. They also used our pillows and blankets during their pretend play in building the ark. My eldest son pretended that he is Noah while my younger son pretended that he is one of Noah's sons helping his father build the ark.

 

Noah's Ark pretend play in our bed with the blue blanket as flood waters. ;)

  

11. We read more books about obedience. - Aside from stories in the Bible that teaches obedience to God's commands in different ways and situations, we also read other books on obedience. Among these books that we read in the past week are the following: Creation (where Adam and Eve disobeyed God and as a result of their disobedience they were asked to leave the Garden of Eden); Jonah and the Big Fish; Flaming Furnace, Fiery Faith (story of Abednego); Moses and One Mighty, Awesome, Incredible Rescue; My Very First Bible (where we read about the obedience of Mama Mary even when she didn't completely understand how the angel's announcement to her would come true, about Joseph's obedience in taking Mary as his wife, about Daniel and the lions); and My Book of Devotions about Obedience. 

 

12. We played Mommy Says (just like Simon Says game) and Follow the Leader - This was also suggested in the lessons on obedience from Kids of Integrity website. I first asked the boys to obey some actions that I instructed them to do (example: touch your right ear with your right hand) then I asked them to take turns being the leader while the other sibling is the follower. The leader gets to lead an action that the other one will imitate. I related this to us Christians being followers and imitators of Christ who is our leader.

Me and my sons (in costume as Saints) during our All Hallows' Eve feast.

 

Our All Hallows' Eve and All Saints' Day feast was a perfect way to celebrate the boys' obedience and our outstanding activities with the letter E! You may read about our celebration here in detail.