Fourth Grade Winter Party by Betsy Wilbur

Hot Chocolate Bar - Popcorn Bar with Toppings - Desserts - LCR Game with Prizes

Fourth Graders are a little past crafts.  Plus we only had an hour after lunch.  So we did a hot chocolate bar (hot chocolate with toppings:  marshmallows, whipped cream and a peppermint stick) and popcorn bar (popcorn with different toppings).  We covered the centers with $1.00 table coverings from Big Lots and also covered the teachers desk which we used as a food table.  I bought the movie-style popcorn bags from Oriental Trading and filled them about half way (about 16 bags of microwave popcorn did 35 bags).  We placed one bag at each child's place.  The hot chocolate was in 2 pump thermoses.  Just enough for 35 kids about 4 oz. each - so maybe a third would be good next time.  Another thermos had hot water and we had apple cider packets (and extra hot chocolate packets).  We also had cupcakes and some cookies.  The kids came up by table of 6 and got their hot chocolate and deserts.    One mom went around to each table with the popcorn toppings while the dessert line was happening.  It seemed to work best to have a mom prepare the hot chocolates to their specifications and just hand it to them.  In hindsight it would have been better to have 3 different stations set up:  1 for desserts, 1 for hot chocolate, 1 for popcorn so that 3 tables could be up at the same time.

For the activity we had a game of LCR at each table (very simple dice game).  We had $1 prizes from Target - enough for each child.  The winner of each round at each table got to pick a prize from the basket.  Whoever did not get a prize then got to pick one on the way out.  We also did a raffle at the end and those 6 kids got to take an LCR game home.  By the time we started the LCR game we only had about 30 minutes left and some of the tables didn't finish a game (so I gave the prize to whoever had the most chips at that time).  A 2 hour party would work great for this - start with the game, break for food, then have another round or do a dance party at the end.