Lollygag Learning

Winter Birthday Party Activities

I am finally getting back on track after our special birthday weekend. We had a blast at Baby Babe’s party! We had two toddler friendly imaginative play areas for the kids: a Milk Jug Igloo and Squishy Snow Dough. I’d love to share how we created these special winter activities! I had so much fun thinking of these Winter Birthday Party Activities For a Toddler!

I wanted to do a wintery theme for the party and when my mom suggested the milk jug igloo I loved the idea! I ended up adding some penguins, snowflakes and an igloo cake and I think everything really came together!

The kids just LOVED the squishy snow dough! I can’t wait to try it again. Baby Babe wanted to sit in the bin and taste the dough, but her older friends were absorbed in the dough all night!

How to make squishy snow dough

9 cups of baking soda + One 12 oz bottle of children’s conditioner.

I used Suave brand that smelled like strawberries. Be sure to use white conditioner so it stays bright like snow! It will seem like a LOT of baking soda and not much conditioner but just keep mixing and squishing and you will see that it really comes together. I loved how it felt cool to the touch and the clean up was really not bad at all! It sweeps up daily and hand rinse clean and soft from the conditioner.

To let parents at the party know what the kids were squishing in I hung a little note stating the ingredients. On the note I included a simple poem to ask the kids to wash their hands first. I didn’t want anyone to be scared about germs in the Squishy Snow Dough!

“Please wash and dry before you try!” I thought that sounded sweeter than nagging the kids or just writing, “Wash your hands! No one wants to share germs!”

Milk jug igloo

We began collecting milk jugs about 3 months before the party. We asked on our neighborhood website if anyone would be willing to save jugs for us. At first we got a few at a time, then my neighbor across the street starting bringing us about 20-30 per week. She brought them home from their work where they use gallons of milk at a time for their cappuccino machine!

It sure was a lot of work to clean out all of the jugs, but soon enough we had saved up about 200 jugs! Unfortunately, I lost the lids to about 50 jugs and we were unable to use them. The lids provide extra support for the structure so be sure to save them!

Once we had our jugs clean, dry, and capped, we lined them up in a semi-circle shape and started gluing them together with a glue gun. We staggered the jugs on the second row (like building a pyramid with blocks) and continued adding levels while slightly moving each level a little bit toward the middle so that we would get a curve.

For the roof we used 2 pieces of PVC pipe and cinderblocks to hold the pipes in place. A white bed sheet gave us a bright airy topping to the igloo. I love the way it turned out! It was a lot of fun to create a special fort for Baby Babe and her friends to play in!

Other fun decorations

Other fun decorations were Baby Babe’s highchair tutu, which I created just like I did her Thanksgiving turkey tutu. Instead of a headband I found crochet ribbon on a spool that is just like the head band. I measured it to be long enough to tie up as an actual tutu after the party was over.

The party favors were were sparkly snow dough and peppermint hot cocoa. I think they turned out super cute!