an oz inspired kids lunch

I am always looking for ways to get creative and keep my boys entertained and with Summer upon us, I really need to find fun activities for them. They recently watched the movie, Oz The Great and Powerful and so I thought it would be fun for them to take an adventure to the Land of Oz for their lunch!

My boys loved the hot air balloon theme in the movie, so I decided it would be fun to dress up the chandelier above my kitchen table with a hot air balloon hanging mobile for our adventure to the Land of Oz.

This was really simple to make but added some excitement to the table!

Here is how I did it:
I drew a simple hot air balloon template to trace each of my balloons onto patterned paper. I did a half of a hot air balloon and then traced my template onto a piece of paper that was folded in half. You want to trace the template onto the seam that has a crease in it so that when you cut it out, you will have a full hot air balloon shape.

I used 4 cut out balloons for each hanging balloon, but you can add more if you want a more dimensional hot air balloon.

Once you have all your balloons cut out, you want to start gluing them together. Stick the seams together and glue the one side down to another until you have a dimensional balloon. I did some patterned balloons and some solid balloons so I glued patterned balloon sides to solid sides so that the finished balloon would alternate between solid and patterned.

Then repeat the steps until you have as many paper hot air balloons as you want or need.

Then you can either use string, twine or in my case, fishing line to hang the balloons.

The hot air balloons could be used for so many different things, party invitations, place markers, a mobile,  or strung together for garland or a party banner! You could even attach them to the string and let the kids run around the room like they are flying them!

I also used a few of these balloons as place markers and wrote the names of the boys as well as "Welcome to the Land of Oz" for our Oz inspired lunch.

Then I created a very simple hot air balloon meal. I cut bread into a circle (using my wide mouth canning jar) and then made a sandwich. I used pieces of string cheese to attach the balloon sandwich to a graham cracker basket. I also added a carrot inside the basket to represent the wizard that was being carried to Oz.

My boys loved it. Something about making food into a shape makes them so much more likely to eat it!

Click HERE for some really fun printable kids activities for Oz The Great and Powerful that my kids really enjoyed. Use them to have your own Oz inspired lunch!

Be sure to check out the info on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter for the movie Oz The Great and Powerful. The Blu-ray Combo pack comes out June 11th! You can find out more info on how to purchase it HERE.

The above image is for personal use only

I wrote this post as part of a campaign for Disney and Blueprint Social. I was compensated for this post, however all ideas are 100% my own.