Have you noticed that at children's performances, performances, and films, children often sit listless and uninterested, while the accompanying mothers, grandmothers, and even fathers and older brothers have much more sparkling eyes? Adults rejoice, are carried away by the action, and empathize with the characters more vividly than children. Maybe because the hall exists separately from the stage and the children are not very involved in the performance?
This doesn't usually happen during holidays. There's enough interactivity here. A skilled animator will involve anyone in games and competitions, regardless of age. Especially if we are talking about a themed holiday, where there is a lot of stage production. For example, about a cowboy party. Everyone in childhood enjoyed playing the Wild West, cowboys and Indians, building wigwams, smoking a peace pipe and twirling pistols on their index fingers. And he will gladly agree to revive old memories. Let's try to figure out how to organize a holiday in the style of a Western.
American Style Invitations
Let's start with invitation cards. Of course, homemade. It is unlikely that you will be able to find a postcard in the store with images of cowboy hats and boots, lasso, banjo and castus. But all this is quite easy to layout in Corel or another graphics program by adding text. If it's a cowboy party for kids, something like "our cowboy John (Peter, Dick, Anthony, Eddie, Sam...) is turning five (seven, ten, thirteen...) years old"; Come, they say, to our ranch at such and such an address on such and such a date at such and such a time. And don't forget to charge the Colt! It would be nice to include something themed in the envelope, like a cowboy neckerchief or a plastic sheriff's badge.
You can issue an invitation card in the form of a poster on colored paper with a large inscription “Wanted” and a photo of the recipient in the form of the main villain of a western. Roll the poster and tie it with a cowboy scarf. And in the text, specify that an invitee is wanted to participate in a country party.
Another idea is a horseshoe or cactus cut out of cardboard. Or a message pinned inside a bell purchased at a gift shop. Let it be a boot for a cow - the main object of the cowboy’s labor efforts. (After all, the word itself means “cow guy.” Shepherd, therefore). And outside the bell will decorate the name of the invitee.
Cowboy's Birthday: Scenario
When the children sit down at the table, the presenter makes an introductory speech:
Dear cowboys and cowgirls, welcome to the meeting on the occasion of the birthday of our Sergei, known by the nickname Zorkiy Eye. It's great that we're here at this ranch today to have a blast. Our birthday boy turned 7 years old today, and old cowboy Joe gave him 7 bulls this morning. What do you think, what does the bulls have to do with it?
Children reason and, perhaps with a hint from an adult, come to the conclusion that a cowboy is a shepherd (from the English cow - cow and boy - guy). The presenter continues:
Old Joe gave the birthday boy 7 bulls, but they ran away. Can you help the birthday boy find the bulls and drive them to the ranch? Then saddle your horses. The very ones you chose. But first, come up with interesting nicknames for them.
Children come up with original nicknames for their horses. A prize can be awarded for the most original and unusual nickname.
Leading:
Have you come up with nicknames? Now let's saddle the horses!
Game "Ride the Horse"
The game is played according to the “Musical Chair” type - only you need to sit on a chair not as usual, but “astride”. Chairs are placed in a circle, but at some distance (so that you can sit on horseback), and there are 1 fewer chairs than participants. While the music is playing, the children walk in a circle around the chairs, and as soon as the music stops, they “saddle up their horses.” The one who does not get the horse is eliminated. The winner is the one who takes the last chair. The leader brings out one bull figurine to the children.
Leading:
So, one bull has been found. But we learned that the second bull was taken away by a cunning Indian. Shall we follow his trail? But he confused his tracks, it’s not for nothing that they call him cunning. However, we will not allow ourselves to be confused, right? We will do the opposite! Let's check how attentive and careful you are.
Stylish suits
Of course, participants in a Wild West-themed party should be dressed and wearing jeans or denim skirts, plaid shirts, leather vests with suede fringe, bolo ties (a cord with a clip), boots with spurs, cowboy hats, and belts with a holster. If you don’t want to strain your guests too much, you can limit yourself to a full-length suit only for the host and hostess. And give the rest a hat. (By the way, the latter are quite suitable as an invitation card - with text on paper inserted behind the lining). And place a basket with multi-colored bandanas and/or toy revolvers at the entrance.
Room decor
- It would be better, of course, to throw a country-style party in a real barn, stable or farm. But in a city environment this is hardly possible, so you will have to settle on an office or rented room (a dining room, for example). For a small number of participants, an ordinary apartment will do. But it will take a lot of creative work to turn it into a “saloon”.
- First of all, a banner above the front door “Welcome to the Wild West!” And next to it is a cardboard figure of a famous person, say, a movie star, in a cowboy costume (so anyone can take a souvenir photo hugging each other). It would be nice to place pots with cacti - live or cut out of foil - throughout the room, and scatter rubber snakes along the floor. If the size of the room allows, haystacks will look great. Are there any concert performances planned? So, we need at least a small scene. It is possible that you will want to set up a whole cinema hall watching Westerns or cuts from them on a white sheet.
- If you have developed imagination and have the opportunity for its material embodiment, you can imitate wooden doors at the entrance to the saloon, a bar counter, hang posters on the walls on cowboy themes (advertising posters of Westerns would be useful), a lasso made of ropes, “cacti” formed from inflatable balloons - sausages, real or improvised bridle and other harness, and attach a huge piñata boot decorated with a spur with sweets, chocolates or souvenirs inside to the ceiling. And it doesn’t take much effort to hang the signs “For Cowboys” and “For Cowboy Girls” on the doors of the toilets and put on CDs with country music.
- In the design of the hall, you can provide for a division into two camps - cowboys and Indians. (The Indian part cannot do without wigwams, totem poles, figurines and rugs). But then, both in the costumes of the participants and in the competitions, the corresponding details and props will have to be taken into account.
- Of course, a saloon cannot be complete without tables covered with red tablecloths. Add more plaid or denim and white and red napkins on top. The same pot of cactus on each table (or in the center of one large common one) will look good. Especially if you tie it with a colored scarf and stick toy spurs into the ground. In place of each guest, place a name card in the shape of a horseshoe or boot made of colored cardboard.
- The children's table can be decorated with soft or rubber toy cows, bulls and horses of various colors, a board game or a cowboy-themed puzzle: they will eat - and then you can have fun. Invite the children to sit on chairs not in the usual way, but on horseback. Not very comfortable, but cowboy style!
Scenery
Turning a forest clearing or a country house yard into a cowboy ranch is easy, so it will be great to organize a holiday in nature. And it’s healthier for kids to have fun in the fresh air. But if this is not possible, decorating a room or rented hall will also not be difficult:
- make a wicker fence from twigs or draw it on sheets of whatman paper. Cut out and color bulls and cows from cardboard. Glue the animals onto the walls, and attach a fence on top so that the cows seem to be peeking out from behind it. The pen is ready!
- Place cacti along the walls and in the corners. They can be made from foam, cardboard or balloons. You can put cowboy accessories on the cacti - scarves, hats, holsters with revolvers - it will turn out cute and fun;
- in one of the free corners of the room, build a city “street” from large boxes without a back wall (the box needs to be reinforced from the inside with tape and placed on its side). Cut out windows and doors on the outside and paint the “buildings.” Label: Sheriff's Station, Saloon and Tavern, Joe's Inn, etc. Tape the boxes together and glue them to the floor (if possible). It will be an excellent backdrop for memorable photos - children will go behind boxes, look out of windows and from behind doors. On several boxes you can draw cowboys with a hole instead of a face (as in Tantamaresque);
- In the play area, place a couple of rocking horses and horses on which you can gallop around the hall. They will be useful for competitions and just for active fun for kids. Horses can be made from a stick and heads sewn from colorful fabric or glued from cardboard. You can tape the head and tail to a gymnastic ball with holders, then jumping will be even more fun!
- You can make compositions from sand, small pebbles, paper thorns and cacti to decorate tables and other furniture. It is better to keep real cacti away, as children may get hurt. Anything related to Indians would be appropriate, but don’t overdo it, after all, the main theme today is cowboys;
- Decorate the tops of the walls and ceiling with paper garlands. For garlands, you can use any attributes in the theme - revolvers, hats and scarves, fringed pants, horses, checkered shirts. It’s very easy to cut out simple shapes from paper, and if you’re too lazy to color, print out the pictures;
- “populate” the room with prairie animals. Bunnies and coyotes, mustangs, snakes and falcons, bison and saigas. These can be soft toys, balloon figures, paper compositions, photos and drawings.
Menu for real cowboys
Cowboys are simple, rude people, not accustomed to culinary delights. And when organizing a Western-themed party, you won’t have to bother with cooking for long. Any barbecue or kebabs are suitable as a main course - beef, chicken, or simply grilled sausages in some of the tomato sauces. Boiled beans or other legumes, pumpkin, zucchini, and various vegetables cooked on the same grill are suitable as a side dish.
It is better to serve food in an unusual way. For example, put sauce on the top of a cowboy hat and scatter chips along the brim. Turn another hat over next to it and pour some candy into it or place cakes on a napkin. Ceramic bowls and salad bowls can be tied with bandanas.
Cowboy Party Invitations
First you need to make a guest list and send out invitations to everyone. The Wild West and cowboy theme gives you an incredible amount of design options for your invitations. You can make them in the shape of a cowboy hat, horseshoe, sheriff's star, horse, cactus, etc.
You can surprise your invitees with a more interesting design. For example, format it in the “Wanted” format. The title will be this word, then they put a photo of the birthday boy in a cowboy hat, and below they write the following text: “You are wanted for active participation in a cowboy party.” The invitation text is written on the reverse side.
You can design the invitation in the form of an ancient scroll, which is tied with twine and secured with a sheriff's badge.
Invitations must indicate the place and time of the celebration. It is also necessary to emphasize that there will be a cowboy party, and therefore it is necessary to adhere to the appropriate dress code: jeans, a checkered shirt, a fringed vest, and most importantly a cowboy hat, a scarf and a weapon, a toy one, of course.
A children's superhero party will be very useful if your child is interested in this.
Games and entertainment
Cocktails are quite suitable as “props” for a competition on the speed of their absorption. A tug-of-war, a relay race with tying and untying by two teams while wearing scarves on the face (you need to escape from a sandstorm on the prairie!), and the game “Ride the Chair” - the same one loved by many generations of Soviet mass entertainers - can also become quite a cowboy competition . Just turn the chairs with their backs towards the center and ask the participants to sit astride them. What can you do: you are unlikely to organize a rodeo on a live bull!
A cowboy party, like any other, cannot be complete without a dance floor. The repertoire is clear: square dance, of course! Maybe one of your relatives, friends or colleagues knows how to dance and will teach others? Or is it possible to invite professional dancers? You can organize a whole dance marathon: divide all the guests into pairs, hang a couple’s number on each male partner’s back and invite them to dance to energetic country music all the way, for elimination. The couple that lasts the longest wins.
An animator will also come in handy, especially at a children's party. But even without it, you can come up with a lot of games and competitions. For example, these.
"Accurate shooter"
This game is best played in the yard rather than indoors. Place empty tin cans in a row and a bowl of water a few meters away from them. Place the rope on the ground. From here, the contestants, to whom you give each a water pistol, will begin to knock down the cans. Those who miss are eliminated from further competition. The one with the most points for the destroyed tins wins.
"Wild West"
The guests are divided into two teams, which line up against each other, with their backs turned. Everyone has a toy gun in their hand. The leader (“sheriff”) keeps a slow count. At the word “five,” everyone turns and points a gun at one of the “opponents.” The one or those at whom the gun was not pointed is eliminated. The game ends when one of the teams has no participants left.
"Pin the horse's tail"
Do you know the game “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”? It's kind of like this, but with a horse instead of a donkey and darts instead of duct tape. Just throw, blindfolded, a dart with a pinned “tail” of yarn or thread (or just a scarf, ribbon) at a dartboard with a picture of a tailless horse pasted on it. The winner is the one who gets closest to the place where the tail should actually be.
"Mustang lasso"
A lasso with a sliding loop is made from rope. Participants in the competition take turns trying to lasso the “Mustang,” which can be a chair, a plastic bucket, or a “one and a half bucket” filled with sand. It is advisable to glue a picture of a horse or a thread tail and mane to the “Mustang”. Everyone is given three attempts, and the luckiest cowboy wins.
"Golden fever"
Bury toys, pebbles, coins, and beads in a large box of sand. Give competition participants each a strainer and a tray. At the signal, everyone must sift through as much sand as possible and find the maximum number of “treasures”.
As an option, “jewels” can float in a basin of water, from where they need to be caught blindfolded with a sieve on a handle or a colander. Or bury the “gold” in a haystack.
The winners of the competitions, of course, should be adequately rewarded. Or maybe, as a farewell gift, you will give each guest a cowboy hat, a bandana, a pot of cactus, a CD with country music, a chocolate coin or a horseshoe for good luck (iron, wood, plastic or cardboard).
Children's birthday in a cowboy style: celebration
Children who come to a cowboy's birthday party can be given elements of a cowboy costume - hats and neck scarves. At the same time, the presenter can explain why the cowboys needed scarves (to protect their faces from the hot sand during sandstorms, which are common in the prairies and desert canyons). It is necessary not only to explain, but also to show how cowboys tied a scarf during a storm. Let the kids practice.
If a creative group has gathered for a cowboy birthday, before starting the holiday, you can invite the guys to “work” on their appearance. For example, make cowboy vests from sand/brown plastic bags or paper bags. You will need several scissors.
First, an adult will show the children how to cut a vest from a bag: first make a slot for the neck, then two slots for the sleeves, then cut the front “back” into two “shelves” and, if necessary, trim the bottom, giving the vest the appropriate length. The bottom of the vest can often be cut to create a fringe. If paper bags are used, after cutting and fitting, you can invite children to decorate their vests using markers, felt-tip pens, stickers, etc.
In addition, you can give children tattoo stickers, transfers or tattoo stamps (horses, cows, hats, pistols, cacti, flowers for girls, etc.): let the kids decorate their bodies with temporary tattoos.
After this, you should invite the children to the table, inviting them to choose a place in accordance with the color of the horse they like. By the way, if the chairs are comfortable enough, you can invite the children to sit astride them.
