Black and White for a Nine year old!

 I'm getting pretty good at making awesome birthday parties. Dawna presented me with my biggest party challenge yet: "Mom, I want a Black and White party!" What?? I mean, what does that even mean??  Well, Dawna and I found out...

We had a pretty short time to put it all together. Sunday night, we created invitations for a Friday morning party:

I googled around and visited Party City and had a fun time getting everything ready... and here's what we came up with for our Black and White Party...

Dawna decorated the white board and we also got black and white lanterns, streamers, and swirly hanging things to decorate the front room. 

We got goody bags with black and white magnets, a soccer bouncy ball, and black and white gumballs, lollipops, and chocolate coins (from Party City's big colorful bins).

 As the party guests arrived, I traced their shadows and had them cut out their own silhouette and add descriptive words or their name with white letter stickers.

 I think they turned out super cute! We also had out chess and Panda Darake (two games with black and white pieces) to fill the time between organized activities.

I found a Jeopardy template for Google Slides and created a  Black and White Jeopardy Game, which you can play along with if you like :) I was really impressed with how well the kids were able to "answer in the form of a question" even though they all claim they've never even heard of Jeopardy... looks like grammar class is paying off... We also played a variation of Headbanz with black and white animals.

 This last-minute game idea turned out to be a hit... I had bought two packs of black and white crystals and scattered them all over the carpet...

The kids had two minutes to pick up as many crystals as they could with just their toes. The black team won 48-39 crystals. Afterwards, each of the kids got to take some crystals home.

 Snack time featured black and white delicacies of all kinds: blackberries and black cherries, cauliflower, mushrooms, mini Oreos, coconut chips, olives, marshmallows, and raisins.

 Dawna's "cake" ... or rather, goblet of ice cream with Oreos on top.

"Happy Birthday, dear Dawna!"

And that is how you make a great black and white party in five days' time! 

 I'd do it again in a second for you, Dawna darling! (actually, I'll probably do it again in about a year...) In any case, it was an awesome party!