Party Kid Style! Celebrating Independence Day in a Family Setting

My daughter and I sat down and discussed July 4th and it's meaning. Her little eight year old brain twisted and contorted but couldn't quite grasp the concept of declaring independence from another country. I'm far from a teacher. In fact, most history I find boring. However, in this case I felt it was important to explain to her why we celebrate. Her father is in the Army currently serving in Iraq. What justice would I be doing to that all important cause if I didn't thoroughly explain to her how we became a country? After a very lengthy discussion she decided she'd like to plan a party.

Alright, what kind of party? She said "A July fourth party Mommy". I told her that first she must select a theme. She went to her room for hours with a pad of paper and a pencil. When she returned she had written on her note pad "Red, White and You". I loved the idea. Red, White and You would be the theme of our party. We sat down at the computer and created a guest list. I noticed that all the people on the list had families. On the rare occasion that I've had parties they haven't been overly child friendly. If we were going to have a party, I was going to have to center the activities to include the kids.

I decided to step back and allow my daughter to plan the party. With my guidance we made a list of things would need to have a successful party. The first item on the list was invitations. We had our guest list, now we must invite those listed to attend the festivities. We decided to put our imaginations to work to create an invitation. It was her idea to place the Declaration of Independence on the front of our invitation. I felt that it would take far too much ink to print the entire Declaration onto a small card. After a bit of discussion, we decided that it would work just as well to only print "We the People..." of the front of the card. However, my daughter had another view.