Hooray for Jack! He turned six recently. My baby is six years old. I loved my birthdays growing up; my mom had way to make my day or my party special, and it's a tradition I wanted to carry on for my own kid. But, celebrating a birthday during a pandemic is kind of weird. And I don't mean in the can't have a big in-person birthday bash with your closest hundred friends, I mean, it's a juxtaposition to be celebrating while others are suffering. But maybe that is a little bit of what we need to do right now? Celebrate the good things, big or small (like a birthday), to savor the bitter sweetness that is life. Of course, it's perfectly acceptable to not want to celebrate anything. It is a pandemic after all.
But perhaps if you are like me, wanting to celebrate a birthday, then I want to share with you how we celebrated Jack's birthday. Of course it was a STEM inspired birthday party, and my inspiration came from seeing a post on Instagram by Lilacs and Charcoal. Lilac and Charcoal shared on Instagram how she had hosted an online birthday party for her child that was mermaid themed. She had delivered party kits to her child's friends, and the kit included an eye spy printable game, coloring sheet and a paint your own mermaid mini craft (which I believe picked up from Oriental Trading Company). On a different post, Lilac and Charcoal had shared that her mom friend was doing a Zoom slime birthday party and that Lilacs and Charcoal had made tags and invites for this slime party. Lilacs and Charcoal also shared that her friend had sent party attendees slime kits to make their own slime (note: this was for an 8 year old's birthday). Light bulb!
As much as I like slime, I wasn't sure if it was the best idea to make slime with six year olds. My own child has gotten slime on the couch, so I could only image what might happen during an online slime making party? So I thought, instead of slime how about science volcanoes? Yes, that's it! And thus, Jack's science volcano online party was born. I reached out to Lilacs and Charcoal and paid her to create a banner, tags, and an eye spy printable game relating to science volcanoes.
Then Jack, Bobby and I assembled a science volcano party kit for 10 kids and drove around delivering the kits the day before to these kids. During the online party, the kids made a fire blower or torch (depending on who you ask) and a clay volcano with an Alka-Seltzer and water eruption. I also read a little bit about volcanoes from this book, and we finished the online party by singing to Jack and eating mini bundt cakes. I got feedback from other parents that it was a pretty good online party and that their child had fun, so that was good. The best part though was how excited and happy Jack was to celebrate his birthday with his friends on Zoom.
If you have any questions about the STEM inspired online birthday party, please leave me a comment below or contact me through the contact page. I'll try my best to respond. And for the sake of your sanity, if a party is too overwhelming to do right now, do not feel bad or guilty for not doing one. I did not create this post to give someone else guilt. I only wanted to share what we did for Jack's party if you are indeed looking for online party ideas. Hugs dear STEM Sparkers! As always, happy STEM-ing!