Sports Birthday Party

It is the season of birthdays for our family, and my son just turned 8!  He requested a sports party, so I set out to plan something fun.

Unfortunately, it was a super duper shmuper busy week. Friday night came and I was scrambling to finish a cake and think of party games.  Fortunately my husband saved the day and came up with the last game which was the hit of the party.

When the guests arrived, they decorated a party bag with sports stickers and pens.

We then played a version of "Simon says" called "Coach says".  The coach would tell the kids to do push ups, or jumping jacks, or sit ups, or run in place, trying to get the other kids out.  I gave each child a whistle when it was there turn to be coach which they really enjoyed blowing. They put the whistles in their party bags when their turn as coach was over.  The kids really liked the whistles, and I'm sure the parents loved them too.  I wonder how many kids still have their whistles, or how many mysteriously disappeared?

After playing "coach says" we went down into our unfinished basement and timed the kids running through an obstacle course we had set up.  They dropped ping pong balls into a plastic pumpkin, did a forward roll, walked on a balance beam, jumped through hoops, and shot a basket.  When they had made the basket, the timer stopped.  We played a couple of rounds.  I think the fastest time was 13 seconds.

The kids had fun with the obstacle course, but everyone's favorite game was dodge ball.  My husband had bought some official rhino skin dodge balls when he worked with the youth in our church.  The balls are pretty amazing. They don't hurt no matter how hard you throw (unless you are wearing glasses and the ball hits you in the face and pushes the glasses into your nose.  Then it hurts, according to my daughter). So even if you have grown ups playing with little kids, the grown ups can throw as hard as they like and the little kids won't cry (well, unless they hit my daughter).  My husband went to the church to pick up the balls that morning and we had a great time with them.

To play dodge ball, you split into 2 teams.  The balls are lined up in the middle of the room.  Each team starts by putting a hand on their back wall (or bookshelf in this case).  When someone yells go, the teams run to the middle of the room to grab the balls, but they have to get back past a certain line before they can throw the ball.  Once past the line they can throw at the other team.  If a player on the other team is hit by your ball, they are out and must go to the side.  If a player on the other team catches the ball you throw at them, then you are out and a player who was out on their side gets to come back in.  A team wins when all the other team's players are out.

We played many rounds of dodge ball then went upstairs to open presents and eat cake.

After presents and cake, the kids headed back downstairs to play dodgeball until their parents came.

The kids went home with party favor bags containing a whistle, sports mazes, a popper game from the party section at walmart, sports stickers, flippy frogs, and a gold medal.  My boy was one happy 8 year old.