Cute and Curious First Birthday

Cute and Curious 1st birthday party ideas for your curious little monkey!

Come have a ball at Curious George 1st birthday party! Children go bananas for Curious George! This cute little lovable monkey would be the perfect choice for your little boy's first birthday party. Our brand new line of Cute and Curious 1st birthday party supplies feature Curious George getting into all sorts of monkey mischief!

It's a jungle in here!

Take inspiration from our Cute and Curious 1st birthday supplies – the plates, cups and napkins provide all the inspiration you need to plan a party that all little kids will love! Just like that curious little monkey, kids are curious too, so create for them a 'jungle' environment that they can explore.

• Twist green and brown streamers together and drape them across the room, in doorways, in window frames and around banisters to look like vines.
• Swing inflatable plastic monkeys and bananas from the 'vines.'
• Hang streamers down from doorways for them to pass through.
• Green balloons can float across the ceiling to give the illusion of a canopy of trees.
• Suspend green balloons upside down from the ceiling for kids to walk through.
• Play a CD of jungle music in the background for kids to dance to.

Interactive games to keep curious little kids busy!

Curious little monkeys can't sit still long, so our party planners came up with some fun interactive game ideas. Depending on the ages of the children, you can decide which activities best fit your party:

• Hide and seek monkey: Hide small toy monkeys around the room. Have each child ‘seek’ out all the missing monkeys. As they find the monkeys, have them race back to the ‘banana bucket’ (a yellow metal pail or container works just fine) and drop the monkeys in. After all the monkeys have been found, sit the kids in a circle and count the number of monkeys in the bucket. Provide each child with a small party favor bag (with their name written on it!) and divide up the monkeys evenly between all the children. They can take their little monkey friends home with them!
• Pin the Yellow Hat on Curious George: The curious little monkey loves to play with the yellow hat! Play our version of this classic party game. Print out, purchase, or draw a large color picture of a Curious George. Using yellow cardstock or construction paper cut out yellow hats. Have each child pin the yellow hat on Curious George. For young children, it might work best to let them pin it on their own without a blindfold. For older kids, you could use a blindfold and/or spin them in circles to make the game more challenging.
• Monkey See, Monkey Do: Our version of "Simon Says" has children listening to hear the words "George Says" before following any movement commands. Offer a small prize to the child who follows what "George Says" best!
• Pass the Monkey! Have the children sit in a circle and give one child a Curious George stuffed animal or toy. Tell the children to pass George around the circle as long as they hear music playing. When the music stops playing, the child holding Curious George is out of the game. Eliminate one player each round; the last player in the game wins the Curious George toy!

Curious little monkeys like the outdoors, too!

If you are able to have part of the party outside, we have some fun outdoor activity ideas as well:

• Make a Curious George Jungle Vine (rope swing) that kids can swing on, just like George!
• George loves inflatable balls, so blow up an assortment of beach balls for kids to toss and kick.
• Set up a bubble blowing station.
• If your budget allows, purchase or rent an inflatable bouncy toy for kids to play in for good 'ol monkeying around fun!

Serve up some fun food even a monkey would love!

Offer your little monkeys fun finger foods!

• Banana slices
• Mini banana nut muffins
• Monkey bread
• Your version of Curious Little Monkey Chow (snack crackers mixed with banana chips) served in the Cute and Curious paper cups

Not all kids like bananas, so be sure to offer a variety of other common finger foods that are popular with kids, like: chicken nuggets, cheese cubes and cut-up fruit.

Serve Curious George jungle juice to wash it all down!

Here is a fun recipe to try:

Curious George Jungle Juice

3 cups warm water

1 cup sugar (or to taste)

3 ripe bananas

1 (46 fluid ounce) can pineapple juice

1 1/2 cups orange juice

1/4 cup lemon juice

3 liters ginger ale, chilled

In a blender or food processor, blend the water, sugar and bananas until smooth. Taste mixture; add more sugar if necessary. Pour into a large pitcher. Add pineapple juice, orange juice and lemon juice; mix well. Using 2 large gallon-sized Ziploc bags, freeze until slushy. Before serving, place the slush mixture into a punch bowl and add ginger ale.

Kids will go bananas when they see these Curious George monkey cupcakes!

Super cute and so easy to assemble! Serve each one up on a Cute and Curious 1st birthday party dessert plate along with a Cute and Curious napkin – little fingers might get messy!

What you will need:

Baked cupcakes

Chocolate frosting

Nilla wafers

Black and red decorating gel icing

How to make:

Bake your choice of cupcakes. Decorate with milk chocolate frosting once cooled. Take one Nilla wafer and cut the rounded edge of one cookie to give you a straight edge. Place the Nilla cookie onto of the cupcake with the straight edge a little more than halfway from the bottom half of the cupcake. This will be the monkey's nose and mouth. Next, cut another Nilla wafer cookie in half and place one half on either side of the cupcake for the monkey's ears. With your black gel icing, pipe on two black dots to represent the eyes, and two smaller dots on the Nilla wafer to represent the nose. Using your red gel icing, pipe on a smile at the bottom of the Nilla wafer. You should now have a cupcake that looks just like a monkey face!

Party favors for good little monkeys:

Send each child home with a little something special for being such a good little monkey! Ideas include:

• A Curious George book
• Curious George DVD
• Barrel of Monkeys: a classic children's game (you can often find inexpensive versions of this game at dollar stores)
• Curious George or monkey stuffed animal