Kids' Kitchen: Teddy Bear Picnic Party ⋆ Sugar, Spice and Glitter

Ella is turning into quite the little party planner – she comes by it honestly – and her most recent idea was to host a Teddy Bear Picnic for our daycare kids! What resulted was a quick and easy Teddy Bear Picnic that you can whip up with your kids in an afternoon.

A quick and easy teddy bear picnic that kids can help prepare. A simple honey layer cake is the center of this bear-rific table scape full of mostly healthy party foods.

The inspiration for this Teddy Bear Picnic came about after the kids had a fun afternoon learning a variety of teddy bear-themed songs:

‘Round and ‘Round the Garden
Teddy Bear Picnic
Teddy Bear Touch Your Toes

Ella, always looking for an opportunity for a party or theme, latched on to the idea of a “Teddy Bear Picnic” and began asking the other daycare children what they would like to do for a teddy bear picnic. She made a list of the suggestions and set to work!

My only condition for this Teddy Bear Picnic was that it had to be created with ingredients and materials we already had on hand – requiring Ella to get creative with the suggestions and her ideas. She really wanted a red gingham picnic blanket for the party, which we didn’t have, so she figured out how to modify her colour scheme to make this blue plaid one work. (Shout-out to Blythe who sewed it for us!)

I think this was not only a great opportunity for her to be creative, but it also taught her that creativity can replace the need for consumerism and purchasing unnecessary items. She was able to throw a cute party and have fun with her buddies without spending any money and put the items we already had in our home to good use. (Although, if we didn’t have Teddy Grahams on hand, I definitely would have let her splurge on those – they are essential teddy bear picnic fodder.)

Ella lined a couple of my ceramic berry boxes with bright napkins before adding handfuls of berries and Teddy Graham cookies to them. This gave them a pop of colour and helped unify her colour scheme. (And we all know how much bears love berries!)

Next, she made ham and cheese sandwiches and cut them out using a bear-shaped cookie cutter. Whole wheat for brown bears and white for polar bears… although the polar bears were left empty. (Don’t ask me why!)

Next, she added a couple paper straws to mason jars (which she called “honey jars” for the purposes of the party) and made some sugar-free lemonade.

However, my favourite part of this table scape has to be that 13-layer Honey Cake!

This was a super simple cake to make, it’s essentially a bunch of rolled-out circles of honey cake dough, baked in the oven for 5 minutes each, and then layered with a homemade sour cream frosting and drizzled with honey.

I helped with this recipe (the first half of the recipe is cooked on the stove) – but the layering and creative flair of adding the glittery bunting banner to the top are all Ella. The skewers actually serve to make the cake’s layers a lot more sturdy, especially with all of that slippery frosting!

A pancake layer cake would also have the same fun effect.

Ella was so proud to surprise the daycare kids with this Teddy Bear Picnic! I love that her picnic offered mostly healthy choices, but most of all I’m really proud that Ella was able to execute most of the picnic by herself and was able to see her idea come to fruition in just a few short hours.

I also added some sausages and roasted potatoes to round out the offerings, but I didn’t dare add them to Ella’s table scape.

The kids had a ton of fun dining with their stuffed animals, singing nursery songs about them, and reading some teddy bear stories. Older kids could have some fun playing traditional party games, but my crew isn’t ready for that yet.