Creating a FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014 Family Night in – World Cup predictions spreadsheet too!

I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper amplification for Collective Bias and its advertiser. We have already mentioned on this blog before that we are big Liverpool FC and football fans, so it probably won’t surprise you to learn that as the FIFA World Cup starts today, the excitement in the KiddyCharts household is reaching fever pitch.

Panini Stickers

My husband and I have been footy fans for a very, very, long time. We used to collect the football sticker albums when we were small – I fondly remember managing to get Trevor Brooking to complete my England team in the 1982 World Cup Squad. Annoyingly, we don’t have those albums anymore. Even digging about in my loft revealed nothing but a few dead spiders, and far too much dust *atichoo* However a friend on Facebook managed to dig her husbands old Albums out instead…do you remember these too? He didn’t manage to get Trevor Brooking did he?!? *HA*

The build up: England vs Peru

In order to try and capture the excitement in the build up to the big match this Saturday, we are getting nostalgic. We wanted to remember our time as children of the eighties with our Panini albums, so we decided to have a sticker and footy themed family night in. Our kids don’t need too much persuading to be “into” the World Cup. We were, in fact, lucky enough to be celebrating Stuntboy’s birthday with a trip to Wembley to see England play Peru. We won 3-0…. *Gloats*

….and as it was on a Friday night, we had the weekend to help prepare for the #BigMatchPlanner campaign later on. My wee boy was over the moon that we had won, and we had an amazing time there. I was stunned he managed to sit still for the full ninety minutes, and we even chatted about how we would celebrate the win in the car on the way home with our #CollectiveBias World Cup themed family night in a few days later. So lets get cracking….

World Cup family night in: The Shopping List

The following day, we headed off to Tesco to get all the necessary party stuff to make the evening go with a bang. Stuntboy wanted the shopping list to be simple:

• Coca Cola
• Cheesy footballs (of course)
• Pringles; which for some reason my kids think are required at a party. If there are no Pringles, they aren’t having fun
• Chocolate pretzels because they caught my eye right next to the Coca-Cola
• England plates (if we could find them), and finally
• World Cup footy stickers from Panini to help fill up the kids album.

At first, I struggled to find the Coca-Cola; it was at the end of an aisle on its own, but we got there in the end…these 4 x 1.5 litres special World Cup promotional party packs are only £4.00 and as I drink Diet Coca-Cola rather a lot, are perfect for parties and beyond. *bad girl*

World Cup family night in: The Plan

The plan for the evening was to be kept pretty basic as well. We wanted to just go with the footy flow as best we could. Though I like parties, I am not one for planning, so the easier the better for us:

• Putting World Cup Anthems on the PC from Spotify *my husbands idea not mine honest*
• World Cup flag quiz
• Sticker pack opening ceremony
• Sticker placement frenzy
• Watching World Cup goals and the England vs Peru highlights
• Subutteo (if time), and finally
• Collapsing to bed totally exhausted…or at least that was the plan….

We managed to find a simple Flags of the World quiz and we were ready to go.

World Cup family night in: The Result

My husband put the background music on *I protested* and we began the quiz. We gave the flags of the world quiz an added twist by also asking the kids if the teams the flags represented were in the World Cup. I am truly ashamed to say I came last; the kids beat me *ignorant.*

I was delighted that the anticipation of seeing what is in the sticker packs for my children was just as it was for me in 1982, 1986 and probably beyond. I still rather like opening them now…

My kids were so pleased that we managed to get the FIFA World Cup sticker – the NUMBER ONE sticker in the album. Apparently, that’s rather important. ;-) *who knew*

The kids were frantic to get the stickers in their album to see whether they had them already or not; much disappointment occurred though as we didn’t get a single England player in ten packs of stickers. We did, thankfully, already have a few. Such a shame, we might have to nip to Tesco to get some more now! *inevitable* Overall, we managed to entertain the kids with Diet Coca-Cola, cheesy footballs, flags and stickers for over two and a half hours! We didn’t have time for football goals, highlights subutteo or anything else; we had to go to bed. Who would have thought a few stickers could keep our kids entertained for so long?

Why don’t you try a Sticker World Cup night in with the kids too, they’ll have a ball *did you see what I did there*?

World Cup Night In: The Predictions spreadsheet

We had so much fun doing all of this, that we decided that we simple HAD to get the kids involved more once the tournament actually started, so to help them have some interest in every game from 12th June onwards, my very clever husband put together a World Cup predictions spreadsheet.

Why don’t you have a go too – just click on the image below to download a copy of the Excel spreadsheet.

It’s quite clever. Choose the teams that you think will progress, as well as the wildcard questions at the bottom, and then see how you get on at the end of the tournament on the 13th July. What are you waiting for; is it Brasil, Spain or England that are going to win?

Why not have your own party after you have filled in your predictions? Visit the Coca Cola Big Match Planner site for ideas and inspiration…so many team, and cultures, there has to be something that takes your fancy.

Photo credit for Brazil Flag: noppasinw /freedigitalphotos.net

Helen

Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine! Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time. KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10. It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania. Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on. Get in touch TODAY!

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