Matilda Birthday

Our middle daughter recently turned eight and requested a birthday party based on Matilda by Roald Dahl. The story is about a brilliant child named Matilda who lives with her less than ideal parents. She attends Crunchem Hall, a school headed by a tyrant known as the Trunchbull. Roald Dahl has a gift of creating stories that children can’t seem to put down. My kids always want to read just one more chapter and they have read and reread all his stories many times. Here is how we turned our home into Crunchem Hall to celebrate my daughter’s birthday with her family and friends. Hoping these ideas and printables may be helpful and fun for young bookworm too. Many of these ideas can also be adapted for back to school celebrations as well as book parties or just to celebrate Roald Dahl (on September 13th).

Decorations:

When decorating, I love using inexpensive supplies like poster board and plastic tablecloths. Here I used one red plastic tablecloth to create a red bow in Matilda’s hair and another plastic tablecloth to make her blue dress. Her face is acrylic paint on white poster board. My kids also helped me to make paper airplanes out of construction paper which we placed throughout our home as a nod to the yellow paper airplane that is on the cover of Dahl’s stories.

In the dining room, I hung up a green tablecloth to create a giant chalkboard. I printed out the letters on cardstock, cut and taped them to the tablecloth using double sided tape. If you would like to recreate this, the printable letters can be downloaded above. A cut up pool noodle strung up with clear fishing line served as the floating piece of chalk. This scene could be easily recreated with different text for back to school. My kids helped me to paint some of the characters in the book on scrap wood to complete the scene.

I made a composition notebook banner for my daughter. I really enjoy creating banners for my kids’ birthdays and special occasions as they are a simple and inexpensive way to decorate. The banners are available here and can be customized for school events as well.

In the playroom I used poster board to create giant books which we hung up with painter’s tape. My kids helped me to turn a huge cardboard box into a larger than life Matilda book. They also added cardboard shelves and their bean bag chairs to create cozy reading areas and really had a lot of fun turning this space into a large library.

Her is the birthday girl’s sisters painting the giant book and the parrot from the missing chapter.

Here is my oldest daughter painting a sign on cardboard. My kids filled a large basket with all their cat and puppy stuffies to place underneath this sign.

My oldest daughter took more cardboard scraps and painted more signs. She freehanded her own text and drawings. I was so proud of her initiative and creativity. She also turned more cardboard scraps into pretend books to display on cardboard shelves she made.

We tied all their dolls’ hair into pigtails as in Matilda, the Trunchbull abhorred pigtails. We decorated more shelves with books from our recent trip to the local library. The kids were so excited to receive a free book for signing up for their summer reading program. I am always thrilled to find educational support like that in our community. Lastly, I set out Scrabble for kids to play.

We also made many larger than life wooden cutouts of all the characters. They are made from panels of particle board and scrap wood. I used a projector to outline their images with a large Sharpie and my kids paint the rest. They are low cost, big impact decorations that my kids always enjoy helping me to make. Shown above is my oldest daughter painting Matilda’s sweet teacher, Miss Honey.

Here is little sister painting the Trunchbull.

Here is the birthday girl posing with the finished Trunchbull.

Here is the birthday girl painting Matilda.

This is what Matilda looked like when finished. We displayed photos of the birthday girl with her. In addition to my daughter’s passion in reading, this year she has really enjoyed softball, ballet, and swim.

In our living room, I displayed another composition notebook banner that said Chapter 8. I added the painted picture of the parrot in front of our fireplace as a nod to the parrot Matilda stuffed into her parent’s fireplace to scare them. I made more composition notebook signs for each craft and displayed them in acrylic frames. The banner is available here. The signs are available here. The details for each activity is described below.

Party Activities:

I found free Matilda coloring pages on Twinkl and also made a few book themed personalized coloring pages as well. I make more personalized coloring pages for kids here.

I projected several pictures from Matilda onto large white poster board to create a coloring wall for the kids. This helped to take advantage of the unused space in our hallway for more activities. This activity was also very quick and inexpensive and is always enjoyed by kids and some adults too.

Here is Matilda getting lost in a book at the library. I used a thick black Sharpie to create the outlines for kids to color in. I love this picture as this is exactly how I felt as a child reading.

Here is Matilda’s father unknowingly working in his wife’s platinum blonde hair-dye. I used push pins to hold the cups of colored pencils and crayons up but you could use less damaging command strips.

Here is Bruce Bogtrotter after finishing his ginormous chocolate cake. My kids really loved this part in both the book and movie.

Lastly, I projected Matilda as a toddler reading the newspaper. After my daughter finished reading Matilda, she told me she thought she was ready for college level books too l.o.l.

The kids colored and decorated these book hats I made. They are available here and would be a fun activity for back to school, readathons, or school bookfairs. I included crayons, markers, glue sticks, and a stapler for the kids to embellish, cut, assemble, and wear. I make more party hats here and crowns here and here.

I printed out many bookmarks for kids to color.

This file is best printed out onto white cardstock and cut around the border to create four bookmarks for kids to color and decorate as desired. I included yarn so they could add tassels. I also printed out more bookmarks that I made previously for my daughter’s Princess Kitty Birthday and Read Across America Week.

I purchased these book themed temporary tattoos on Amazon featuring pictures of cute animals with books as well as fun sayings. I just laid them out on a table with some baby wipes as another easy activity for the kids. Temporary tattoos are always an inexpensive and fun addition to all my kids’ parties.

I found these gold book beads on Amazon and included them in a tray filled with alphabet beads, pony beads in primary colors, and some fun glow in the dard beads for the kids to make their own necklaces. I also included black elastic string, scissors, and pipe cleaners. This simple activity was well received and her guests made many bracelets, necklaces, and even beaded bookmarks.

I purchased this set of scratch art bookmarks and my daughter helped me to hang them on our white Christmas tree for kids to grab and decorate. We pretty much have this tree out all year in the kids’ playroom and decorate it for all birthdays and holidays.

I added a simple sign to invite kids to make a Lego newt out of my son’s huge Legos collection as another easy to set up party activity. The kids really enjoyed this no prep activity that also did not cost us anything.

We hosted a story time. Story time is always a free and welcomed addition to all of our kids’ parties. My husband read Chapter 4 which was one of my daughter’s favorite chapters in the book that was missing from the movie, in which Matilda borrows her friend’s parrot to scare her parents.

We made a homemade pinata out of a big box, scrap cardboard, tissue paper, and crepe paper streamer.

Here is the birthday girl who has become quite an expert at helping me to tape and glue everything on.

My kids always enjoy helping me to make these larger than life pinatas and filling them with their favorite candy.

Here is the birthday girl taking a swing at her finished piñata! She has become quite the softball player this year.

We turned our outdoor space into many themed places from the stories. In the story, Matilda’s father is a crooked car salesman who owns Wormwood Motors. We filled a water table with a mix of dish soap and water, added sponges and various toy cars that my kids already owned.

We filled a water table up with foam letters and labeled it Miss Honey’s Class. The addition of measuring cups, tongs, and scoopers led to another easy and inexpensive invitation to play.

We set up a notebook decorating station where kids could use paint pens and various stickers to personalize their notebooks. I purchased the composition notebooks for just 38 cents at Walmart taking advantage of their back to school deals. The kids all really enjoyed this. It made for such an inexpensive activity and was a useful favor to take home.

We filled the sand table up with a mix of all purpose flour, baby oil, and hot cocoa powder. I added some of my silicone cupcake liners and a sign that said Make a Cake for Bruce. Kids of all ages really enjoyed this sensory play setup.

Food:

In lieu of paper plates, we used these take out containers I found at the Chef’s Store so guests could fill with food as their TV dinner. In Matilda, her mom is always too busy going to play bingo that she never has any time to cook for her family. She just heats up frozen meals for them to eat every night in front of the TV. I also added gummy worms as book worms and shrimp chips as sheet paper.

We included the birthday girl’s favorite foods as well as a lot of homemade kid friendly favorites. My daughter loves queso, corn, and mac and cheese.

I used this delicious recipe from Natasha’s Kitchen to make my daughter’s favorite corndogs. The large customizable party signs are available here.

My parents made their delicious noodles. Unfortunately they were devoured before I could take a proper photo.

We served these delicious egg rolls. We make the egg rolls as a family usually one to two weeks prior and freeze them. On the morning of party day, I just dump them all into a large roaster oven to reheat them and keep warm to serve. We usually make around one hundred and don’t have much leftover. In hindsight it would have been fun to call them honor rolls.

My oldest daughter helped me to make these easy string cheese rulers. All you need is a black Sharpie and a ruler. Simply mark and label every inch then add shorter lines for every half inch. They are great to make ahead, ready to pull out on party day. They also make a fun addition to kids’ lunches for school.

My kids used a cookie cutter and followed this recipe to help me make some sugar cookies. As we didn’t have a rectangular cookie cutter we cut them twice to create a chalkboard shape. We left them unfrosted and made vanilla buttercream frosting tinted green for guests to frost at the party as another fun activity. We also added muffin cups filled with these letter sprinkles. This activity was a big hit. Everyone really enjoyed decorating and eating their chalkboard creations.

We served a lime sherbet punch and called it Newt Punch. In Matilda, there is scene where her friend Lavender puts a newt into the Trunchbull’s water. I just hot glued a lizard toy my kids already had to our drink dispenser and added two 48oz containers of lime sherbet to three 2L bottles of ginger ale. Before the party was over, I had to refill it with two more 2L bottle of ginger ale. The hot glue is easy to remove afterwards and doesn’t cause any damage to the drink dispenser.

My daughter requested a large chocolate cake just like the one Bruce Bogtrotter was forced to eat by the Trunchbull except made with ice cream.

I doubled this recipe to make the chocolate cake, adding two 48oz containers of Breyer’s double chocolate brownie batter ice cream in the middle. I covered it all with this chocolate whipped cream from Sugar Spun Run.

My daughter loves being the center of attention and was one hundred percent in her element here. Believe it or not her gigantic cake was completely devoured by the next day.

Here is the birthday girl enjoying one last slice of chocolate cake for breakfast on the day after her birthday. I may have also enjoyed a slice with my coffee.

I also made some simple cupcake toppers, adhered them to toothpicks with some scotch tape, and inserted them into vanilla cupcakes. The toppers are available here and here.

Favors:

In lieu of traditional party favor bags, we opted to gift these reusable book bags. I made a template and projected it onto these plain bags. I used a sharpie to draw onto each bag and set up a table outside with paint pens for kids to decorate. Guests also filled the rest of their bags with pinata candy as well as any crafts they wanted to take home. The book bag template is free to download above for personal use. I create more treat bag labels here.

Here is the birthday girl with all of her presents. I really enjoyed reading all of Dahl’s stories as a child and have always loved helping to bring books to life for my kids so this party theme was just pure joy for me. There wasn’t much out there when planning which is a challenge that I always welcome. I also enjoyed getting my kids involved in the whole planning process. Maybe someday they will create something inexpensive and fun for their kids’ birthdays or just be more equipped to host something for their community! I plan to reuse a lot of what we made for future book parties as well as to help decorate for school book fairs and events.

I create more printable activities for kids here with the goal of helping to grow kids who love to learn.

To see my other kids’ parties click here.

If you use these printables or party ideas, I would love to see it! Please use #sodangfun on social media, tag me @sodangfun on Instagram, or post to my Facebook page.

I hope this post can help you to create some inexpensive and epic fun for your young bookworm!