A fun girls 7th birthday party if you like High School Musical

As always, we have a blast with birthday parties around here and I'm usually in charge when it's a girl's birthday party. My daughter picks the theme based on what she loves that year. This year we had a high school musical party theme even though it was a few months after HSM2 came out. It ended up being a beautiful day so we were able to mix things up with some outside and some inside activities. Always a bonus with first grade girls. A fun time was had by all and we did some great activities. Hoping you may find a few good party tips in this overview:

Games and activities: Really anything that either uses High School Musical music or involves cheerleading or sports is fair game. Since it was a 7 year old girls birthday party, we did the following:
- decorate a megaphone craft (orientaltrading.com) Great while you wait for everyone to arrive
- musical chairs with HSM music (actually did it outside with placemats on the ground instead of chairs - MUCH easier)
- scavenger hunt using HSM clues and/or searching for HSM items
- freeze game with HSM music (they dance around until the music stops and then need to freeze in their spot)
- yearbook questions - this was definitely the highlight - and it was also the prize for them to take home. See details below. The girls spent the last hour filling out their yearbooks and getting autographs from each other.

Prize/giveaway: a homemade HSM yearbook. We used a blank journal and wrote East High Wildcats on the cover. Then we decorated the first 6 pages with characters from HSM and wrote a few simple Q&As. (downloaded their pictures from internet and taped into the yearbook). We then took a picture of each girl that game to the party, color copied them, and cut/pasted them into the next 10 pages of the book. We had written their names in advance as well as the couple questions. For these first graders who are just learning to read and write, they were pretty basic. Birthday, Favorite Color and Nickname. They wrote the answers to the questions themselves and had a great friendship keepsake to take home.

Time: 1pm - 4pm (avoids lunch!)

Where: our house. We have a boathouse so we were able to set up the party in there. Any toy room, garage or good sized living room would also work well. Or outside if you live in a better climate than I do!

Decorations: 2 high school musical posters (can then be put in her room), streamers in red and white (wildcat colors) and HSM themed paper goods from CelebrateExpress.com

Food: Snacks set out the whole time for them to munch. Veggie tray, pretzels and goldfish tray, drink yogurts, and meat and cheese tray. (we use cut up turkey meat sticks). Cookies for dessert.