Thursday, January 1, 2009

New Year & Leap Second Costume Party

We had a number our children's friends come for an evening of good times with games, geography, missiology, sociology, physics, food, and fun. See pictures from the party.

They arrived by 6p.m. EST to celebrate the New Year in Madrid, Rome, Paris, Budapest, Geneva. They were dress up in costumes that represented people groups from anywhere in the world including China, Romanian Gypsies, England, non-specific island nations, France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia.

A highlight of the party occurred at 6:59:59 EST or 11:59:59 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time. We watched the atomic clock blink 59 seconds twice.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20081226/sc_space/2009toarrivenotasecondtoosoon

Food.................................... Game/Activity
cheese fondu ....................... Paper Tower competition (15 min, 8 1/2 x 11" paper, 20cm tape)
w/ apples, bread, etc. ........ Playdough sculpture

Fish & chips ......................... Jump rope
...............................(to leap into the new year with the leap second)
................................................ Pendulum competition
....................(washers & string to make pendulum with 2 sec period)
Laffy Taffy ........................... Jokes in British or some other accent
............................................... Watched Standard Deviants
. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . . ."Russian Around Europe"

Smoothies ............................. Limbo
(planned but didn't get made)
Popcorn ................................ Make popcorn lei
................................................ Popcorn catching competition with a partner

Chips & Salsa ....................... Bubble Bowling (see page 335 of The Original Girls Handy Book)
'Fried' ice cream .................. Earth Toss with inflatable globes

We also had Mission Moments using Operation World were we read and prayed for various nations.

On the hour, the kids enjoyed counting down and blowing horns that I got from Kipp Brothers Toys. Everyone had left by 10:30, the time for Newfoundland's New Year. If you think having a half hour time zone is interesting, I found on a countdown clock site that there are a few places on a 15 min time zone - Chatham Island (part of New Zealand) and Kathmandu, Nepal.

Psalm 90: 12 Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom

2 comments:

Dianne said...

This is absolutely creatively carefully wonderfully full of abverbish description exhibiting a clear reflection of our Creator's character He passes to His children through Christ. Thank you so much for sharing it! Do you take this on the road? :) I'd love to pencil you in for leading this in Orlando...you have many places to stay and lots of youngins to enjoy such blessing!

Dianne

Mr. Bird said...

I was thinking about how this would work well at my school too.

That sure is a lovely idea of being in Florida for the New Year. Monica says that is a tempting offer. It is too cold here, especially when you don't have heat and there is a negative wind chill. (That is an interesting story from about 10 days ago. I should see if I can get Monica to tell that story.)