Thanks to everyone who contributed ideas and some great pictures for my Hawaiian
party for the students who read all twenty of the Young Hoosier Book Award Books
this year. I have about 30 students who will be attending the party.
Orientral Trading Company was great. Fortunately, I just finished a book fair and
had some money to spend. (Next year, we will do a Fiesta on the beach party, so I
bought a lot of things that will carry over next year.)
In addition to the fun food, we will be doing the limbo, learning the hula
(Oriental Trading had a video), playing beach tic tac toe, ring toss on the dolphin
nose, designing a Hawaiian bookmark for summer reading, and thanks to a Hoosier
media specialist, playing Young Hoosier Book Award Jeopardy.
Thursday is the day! Here is a HIT of all of the ideas!
Janet Pfadt, Media Specialist
Fox Hill Elementary School
802 Fox Hill Drive'
Indianapolis, IN 46228
jpfadt1144@comcast.net
Oh, you must get the music and teach the hula. It's easy and fun. Wear
grass skirts, bring beach towels to lay on. Put up palm trees. Oriental Trading
has a ton of Hawaii theme things that are just awesome, and not too pricey. That
blow up palm tree is way awesome. We have it at our school.
Oh, and don't forget the Hawaiian punch!!
Serve pineapple for snack.
If you get an Oriental Trading catalog, they have tons of stuff to decorate for
island type themes and everything is very inexpensive. You could get plastic leis
for everyone and sit around low tables (if you can change the height of your
tables). Just look through their catalog and get tons of ideas.
We had a faculty Hawaiian party here three or four years ago. It was so much fun.
We ordered leis and other cheap stuff from Oriental Trading. We each brought a
dish including some Hawaiian barbecued ribs (mine), a fresh fruit platter with
tropical fruit, coconut cake, etc. We decorated with some fake palm trees and other
big plants and we all wore Hawaiian shirts. I made the coolest tropical earrings
out of little straw hats and fake fruit and flowers. We got a Hawaiian CD and
played music and one of our elementary teachers whose husband (now deceased) was
Hawaiian brought her daughter to teach us to hula.
Fantastic idea! I recently received a postcard flyer from a company (it's already
been tossed so I can't tell you the name) that offered a special price for 50
colored plastic leis that you could use for part of their costume. These are
probably available in one of those catalogs that offers quantities of pencils,
knick-knack, etc. like Oriental Trading Company (web site?). You could invite the
kids to wear a brightly colored shirt or flowered Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses,
shorts, etc. to the party. Also, bring a beach towel to sit/lay on. Be great if you
could go outside in sunny, warm weather - or pretend! You could have a mini-luau:
Fresh fruit – maybe grocery store might donate fruit and a pineapple cake or some
moms might be willing to make some for the occasion. Serve some fruit punch. Play
Hawaiian music - maybe borrow several CD's from the public library. If you're
outside, MAYBE you could have some squirt guns and have distance shooting contests
with water from a coup!
le of buckets hitting a "sand beach." At this time would they be voting for their
favorite book read for the state award?
Aloha Janet ... as a Hoosier by birth (Indianapolis) I feel I need to help out with
this party! Kids here in Hawaii snack a lot on "crack seed" which is
chinese-influenced preserved seeds and fruits. One of the flavorings used in it ...
Li Hing, or dried plum, is available in a powder form. We use it on tons of
things. My husband and I are very partial to margaritas using li hing powder on
the rim instead of salt! I will be happy to send you a packet of it. For the kids
you could use it sprinkled over fresh pineapple pieces (tho I know it is difficult
to get good fresh pineapple in Indiana ... I used to try when I visited my
grandmothers!) or over sliced apples.
Our kids also like to snack on the Japanese rice crackers (arare).
If you don't have access to fresh flowers to make leis ... a fun way to
make them is to cut small pieces of straws, and cut out flower shapes from
construction paper. Then string them, alternating the straw pieces and the flower
shapes.
While I don't recommend trying out poi (its flavor is not for the
uninitiated!), if you don't mind a little mess you could use pudding and
have the kids eat it with two fingers. Of course you shouldn't be seated at the
table, but on the floor on mats (or beach towels) as if you were at a luau at the
beach.
Oriental Trading has lots of Hawaiian style decorations. Do fruit kabobs on long
toothpicks: pineapple, bananas, maraschino cherries. Make a bowl out of a pineapple
by cutting a hole in its side and scooping it out. Fill it with cut melon...
Egg rolls with sweet & sour. have some Veg. Chicken, Beef etc. Get them frozen at
Sam's club or other places.
Coconuts
Mangos
Papaya
Rombuton (Spelling?)
Durian (Stinks)
Jack Fruit
Star Fruit
Ham (except some kids may have religious or dietary restrictions)
Hi Janet,
I did a Hawaii in February program once...
plastic leis
hula lessons
play beach volleyball with balloons
sand crafts
coconut flavored cookies, pineapple chunks
Hawaiian punch with the little umbrellas (or pineapple juice/soda)
build sand castles with assorted size boxes (they look nice covered in foil!)
make visors to wear in the sun....
the highlight of the evening was a young man who did fire-twirling; since we were
inside he used light sticks, but it was awesome)
Oriental Trading has lots of stuff you can use as decorations, but we made mini
palm trees using paper towel tubes as the trunk with green construction paper
leaves, and I was even able to make a couple large ones by getting empty tubes at a
carpet store.
If you get the Oriental Trading Company catalogs, they always have a
great section for luau items for these types of parties. You can also
visit their website at
http://www.orientaltrading.com/otcweb/application?namespace=main
and click on Themes at the top. Luau is one of the themes listed.
Oriental Trading Company is the answer to just about everything you
need--they have leis, grass skirts, and even inflatable palm trees in their current
catalog. It's all very inexpensive, so you can decorate and get party favors.
Hawaiian punch, fresh coconut, fresh pineapple, and voila, you're almost there! I
can't find my catalog, but I believe their website is Orientaltrading.com.
(If not, google it and I'm sure you'll find it.)
Have a blast—
How about relay games that involve grass skirts, coconuts and a limbo bar? Lei's
and other cheap, fun stuff can be bought through Oriental Trading. Book mark
coloring contest with a Hawaiian theme or make cool Hawaiian bookmarks for them.
Take a picture of each kid by a palm tree (post, duct tape, spray paint brown, poke
fern fronds into it for branches) with sunglasses and a lei. Hawaiian punch?
Pineapple? Hawaiian pizza? Enjoy.
Last weekend I co-hosted a state convention for my sorority and our theme was
tropical--not quite Hawaiian, but I do think I have some ideas you can use. We
made palm trees out of carpet rolls. We hung paper parrots from the trees. Some
of the "fun" activities that we did were a hula hoop contest, limbo contest, and
decorating flip-flops with loops (like you make potholders out of) or strips of
fabric or "jewels" that we hot glued on. We served tropical drinks (pineapple and
orange juice punch) along with fresh fruits such as kiwi, mango, pineapple, and
coconut. If you have access to an Ellison die machine there are lots of cute dies
which you could use to make decorations. I purchased leis at 6/$1.00 at a local
discount store. We made a Tiki hut out of a cardboard refrigerator box and grass
skirting material--check out Oriental Trading catalog. We played island music.
You could have a surfboard decorating contest--using cardboard cut into surfboards
or possibly inex!
pensive boogie boards.
I know you and your students will have such a great time with this.
Pineapple, macadamia nuts, pulled pork, heavenly hash, sweet potatoes.
Leis, bright flowers, thatched huts.
Have fun.
You can decorate with grass skirts and tropical looking decor--see
oriental trading company website http://www.orientaltrading.com. Also serve
pineapple fruit punch, play the limbo, learn a Polynesian dance--serve
coconut/pineapple pie. Just a few ideas...sounds likefun!
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