Construction Party

This was a party thrown for my nephew's first birthday, with a construction theme. We all received these cute homemade invitations that read this inside:
ATTENTION BUILDERS
Mandatory Builders Meeting
In Honor of Foreman Jet
Turning one
This means there’s lots of work to be done
Please report to the Tafoya Construction site
Located at
(Home address)
Your shift starts at 6 P.M.
On March 3rd
Please call the shift supervisor.
(My sister-in-law and her phone number)
To report the number of workers in your crew

For the decorations they used garden plastic to make a road through the party area with strips of yellow tape for the traffic lines. They placed adorable inflatable road signs along the road (ordered from Oriental Trading) and decorated the room with plastic tools, caution tape, and yellow, orange and black balloons. You can't see it, but at this end of the road was a homemade "Car Wash" sign which led the kids through a curtain of caution tape, under a pool table, and to an inflatable Stop sign.Each kid had a sack lunch waiting with a sandwich, juice box, fruit bag and chips.When the kids arrived, they each had a Time Card with their name at the top, and this list:
Truck Detailing
Road Construction
Build a House
Stop and Go traffic
Lunch Break
Paper Demolition
Utensil Training
As they completed each activity, they had to have the Foreman (my sister-in-law) check it off. For the first activity, "Truck Detailing" each child colored a picture of a car. Once they got that checked off, they headed over to the start of the roadway for "Road Construction". They had to follow the road to several stations where they completed a small task (like building a small house from Lincoln Logs) or picked up a piece of equipment. Each kid ended up with a hard hat (from Oriental Trading) and a fabulous little tool belt. The tool belts were made out of pencil holder kits used in binders. They found them at Big Lots and sewed ribbon on the backs to tie around the kids' waists, then bought mini tape measures and paint brushes at Home Depot to put in the pockets. The kids LOVED them! My daughter had to wear her gear for the rest of the day, even into the grocery store!

Now that everybody looked official, they had to "Build a House." We all gathered around the table and were given graham crackers, frosting, licorice and candies to build a creative little building. We did this in family groups so that the adults could help their kids. The family with the most creative finished product got a prize.Next was a game of "Stop and Go Traffic." The kids lined up at one end of the room while my sister-in-law stood at the other end with a Stop/Go sign. When it was flipped to Go the kids made a mad dash toward her. When she flipped it to Stop, they had to screech to a halt. Anyone who didn't stop fast enough was sent back to the beginning. We played this several times, and let the kids take turns holding the sign.

After the kids had put in some hard work, it was time for a "Lunch Break." They were handed their sack lunches and got to sprawl out around the construction site to eat. As the finished up, the birthday boy got to open up his presents which were wrapped appropriately in brown paper. This was "Paper Demolition".The he got to dig into his own special Edible Excavator Cake found at FamilyFun.com!For everyone else, rather than a traditional cake we got to dig into this pile of crumbled brownies made to look like a pile of dirt and gravel for our "Utensil Training"!This was an incredible party, everyone had a great time! It's often difficult to plan a party for a one-year-old because it tends to be a family party involving a wide range of age groups rather than just one similiarly aged group. But this party kept everyone entertained, even the birthday boy!