This jungle adventure birthday party theme works for boys and girls, requires little money but lots of imagination.
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When Christopher turned 8 years old, we threw him a jungle birthday party. He was very involved in choosing the theme and the games he wanted to play with his friends. The party took about an hour and a half including time for presents and cake.
I like to have an open-ended art activity going for the guests when they arrive that they can work on while we wait for everyone to get there. For this party I had the kids decorate their paper-plate jungle hats. I bought oval paper plates (they were Chinet platters) and paper bowls. I cut a hole in the platter (just so it would fit on the kids' heads better) and glued a bowl upside down on top. The kids colored with crayons and we used string to tie them on to the kids. You can also have the kids make fun jungle binoculars with cardboard tubes if you happen to have enough saved up. I didn't.
Once everyone had arrived I handed out their jungle bags which they would use to collect items they found along their adventure. These were super easy to make and involved no sewing. I bought brown felt and some cording. First cut the brown felt into a rectangle about 8 inches wide and 21 inches long. Cut a piece of cording about 34 inches long. Fold the brown felt about 7 inches up to make a pouch (the top part will hang over the pouch) and hot glue the sides together. While the glue is still hot, stick the cording in between the felt folds so it is attached with the glue.
When Christopher got his bag, he happened to find a treasure map in his!! (I had told him it was in there and he was supposed to pretend to be surprised when he found it). Everyone decided we should follow it to see what we would find.
The first picture on the map showed us traveling through jungle vines. The kids took turns going through the vines and avoiding the balloon snakes my daughter had made (which you can't really see in the pictures). After successfully traversing the vines they received a bag of red vines to put in their brown felt jungle bags.
Next, the kids had to conquer some wild beasts. Christopher had colored some animal faces on paper plates. We strung them up with yarn across our family room. We armed each child with a pvc pipe dart gun and gave them a bag of marshmallows for ammunition (we let the marshmallows sit out for several hours to harden up a bit to make them easier to shoot and less squishy if they got stepped on). They lined up and shot at the targets. There was lots of cheering when they managed to hit a paper plate! Then the grandpas decided they should be wild animals and turned into moving targets. The kids loved that! After they defeated the wild animals, they got a bag of circus animal cookies to put in their jungle bags.
The next item on the map showed the kids crossing piranha river. Unfortunately for the kids the river was flooding! I took a blue bed sheet and folded it over a couple of times. My daughter made some balloon fish to stick in the "water". The kids lined up and all took a turn jumping across. After everyone jumped at the current width we made the river grow wider by unfolding the sheet. If a child touched the water, they were eliminated and sat down. Each time the water grew a bit more. The game was to see who could jump over it when it was really wide, but you could also play without eliminating the kids when they touched the sheet. After this game they got a bag of Swedish fish for their jungle bags.
On the map next was a bunch of Lego bricks. Strange, huh? But as I said, Christopher was heavily involved in planning and really wanted to build with his friends. So, we decided that the kids would come up with their own creations to help them get through the locked door that was blocking our way to the treasure. We got out a bucket of Lego bricks and the kids got to work. We gave them about 10 minutes and then they each got to get up and show people their creation and tell them what it did and how it would help us get to the treasure. The kids were very enthusiastic about this activity and loved showing off their inventions. They received a bag of candy bricks to add to their collection of things found in the jungle.
Lastly, we took our inventions to get into the treasure room. This last game was chosen by Christopher because he thought it was so fun when we did it at Joshua's Minecraft party the year before. We stacked up foam blocks. Some of the blocks had a little picture of gold taped to it. The kids took turns picking off blocks until they found one with the gold picture. Then they got their bag of chocolate gold coins to put in their jungle bags.
The kids got more candy than I usually give out at parties, but I'm sure you could also come up with some non-candy things to represent each adventure if you'd rather not give out so many treats. I tried to make the treat bags small anyway.
We then went into the kitchen for cake and ice cream and presents. I made Christopher's cake 4 layers tall so I could make jungle trees on the side. The trees are made with Rolos for the trunks (glued together with frosting) I also used green Sixlets to help decorate.
The kids all went home with their jungle hats, pvc pipe dart guns, jungle bags filled with treats, and a balloon snake from the vine game. It was a fun party!
This year for Maren's birthday, we decided to throw a "How to Throw a Party" party. The girls had a lot of fun with the activities!
I had originally planned on a three hour party, including lunch and time for just hanging out. But it turned out there were several events occurring I had forgotten about and we had to condense it into two hours. So I'm going to include the other ideas for the party that we had, even though we didn't get around to doing them all, but maybe you will.
I like to have an open-ended craft activity going when the kids arrive so that there's something to do while we wait for everyone to come. For this party the girls decorated their party favor bags with markers and foam stickers.
Once all the girls were together, we ate lunch. We had turkey croissant sandwiches, raspberries, chips, and pink lemonade. We also sang to Maren and ate her birthday cake.
Now one activity I cut out because of time was having the girls decorate our house for the party. I was planning on putting them in pairs, handing them streamers, balloons, and painters tape, and letting them go crazy. I thought that would have been a fun start to the party, but alas, no time.
For our first activity, I taught the girls how to twist balloons. The girls LOVED this activity. I had blown up a lot of balloons before the party started (because this takes a lot of time) and showed the girls how to make a sword, a helmet, and a flower. I used a Klutz balloon twisting book for the project ideas. Unfortunately, the book is out of print, but buying it used is a good option just so you have the instructions. And you'll need some good quality twisting balloons - the Qualetex 2x60 inch are the best.
making helmets
After we twisted balloons, we came back to the tables to make our party favors - wishing bracelets. The idea behind these is that you make a wish when you tie it around your wrist and then your wish will come true when it falls off.
Next was the girls' favorite part of the party - cake decorating! I made 15 six-inch cakes (just one layer) and frosted them. I had seen on other blogs the idea for glueing a glass plate to a glass candlestick holder from the dollar store to make a cute little cake stand. I could not find such things at our dollar store, and so instead I hot-glued a plastic plate to a plastic bowl to make cute little cake stands. They were not reusable, or perfectly sturdy, but they worked well enough and made the cakes seem a bit more special.
To start, I showed the girls how to hold the bags and pipe with two different kinds of tips - the straight tip and the star tip. I showed them how to do stars and scallops. I had pre-filled a bunch of bags with colored frosting, closed tight with rubber bands, and let the girls go crazy. I also had a bunch of colored sixlets the girls used to decorate. They had a lot of fun decorating and I was quite impressed with their work.
The other thing we were going to do but did not have time was to let the girls come up with games. We were going to divide them into teams, let them draw a slip of paper with a party theme written on it, and have a bunch of random supplies they could use to come up with a game to fit their theme. Then we were going to play the games they came up with. But there was no time.
Finally, the girls collected a party bag and went home. The party bags included 5 disposable frosting bags, one of the piping tips (I just cut them off the bags and washed them real quick. They got to choose if they wanted a star or straight tip), a little bag of colored sixlets, some extra twisting balloons, their wish bracelet, some nerds (because Maren likes them), and then they took their cake home as well.
All in all it was a success! The girls had a lot of fun (and some even took up a hobby in balloon twisting).
This Murder Mystery birthday party was a lot of fun for my 10 year old and his guests.
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On Monday we realized we finally had a free weekend to throw that birthday party for Joshua that was 3 months overdue. On Tuesday I invited the guests. On Wednesday I had an inkling of an idea. On Thursday I tweaked it. On Friday I planned and cleaned and shopped and videotaped. And Friday night we had a fun party that I hope I can describe well enough that someone else can use the idea too.
Since this was a last minute party, I did not send out invitations, and the kids actually had no idea what type of party this was going to be. On Thursday I emailed the parents to ask their kids to come dressed up as any type of character they would like to be, but they didn't know why. When they arrived, the Butler (aka Jason) welcomed them to Mr. Negg's home.
Decorations were very sparse. On the front table I had a black tablecloth with a picture of Mr. Negg (probably one of my favorite pictures of Nathan ever because it's hilarious) along with some papers which we handed to the guests as they arrived. And then we had black balloons hanging up in some places and that was pretty much it.
There was an obituary for Mr. Negg on the front of the page of the paper:
"Mr. Beeta Negg, born 1965, was a famed chicken trainer and circus performer. He learned to love chickens while growing up on his family's farm. He could never bring himself to eat them though, and became a vegetarian at an early age.
One day he discovered that by feeding his chickens marshmallows he could train them to do whatever he asked. Soon people were coming from all over the world to watch him and his trained chickens.
At age 17, Beeta opened the world's first Chicken Circus. The chickens would perform amazing death defying stunts. Soon other circuses wanted to add chickens to their performances and Mr. Negg opened up the now world famous Negg School for Chickens. His trained chickens were highly sought after and performed in cuicruses all over the world.
Mr. Negg was found dead in his home late Monday night. He is survived by the 10 trained chickens which currently reside with him and one son, who has been missing for some time now.
The world will miss this eggcentric chicken farmer."
And on the back it explained what they were doing here and gave them space to work out who their character was:
"Early yesterday morning you received a phone call. Mr. Beeta Negg, the eggcentric chicken trainer, had unexpectedly passed away. What was even more surprising was that you were named as a beneficiary in his will! (That means he has left you something, such as money or his old belongings.) You were invited to come to his house for dinner and a meeting with Mr. Negg's lawyer to hear the will be read. What could Mr. Negg have left for you?
Fill out your character's story below:
My name:
Age:
Occupation:
Where I live:
How I know Beeta Negg:"
The kids did a great job coming up with their characters. They discussed who they were during dinner. Since the kids didn't know what to expect when they dressed up, we had all sorts of funny characters. We had a zebra who said she knew Mr. Negg from biting him once at a circus. We had a private detective who said he was hired to find Mr. Negg's missing son. We also had the Joker who said he had killed Mr. Negg (although he later changed his tune).
During dinner I also introduced the guests to the house staff. I played the part of the lawyer, my husband played the part of the Butler, my 12 year old daughter played the part of "assistant chicken keeper", my 8 year old son played the part of a policeman, and my 5 year old was a servant. It was nice to be able to involve my other kids in the party. Maren carried around "Bob", Mr. Negg's favorite chicken during the party. It was this Folkmanis Rooster Puppet (have I ever told you how much I love puppets?), and she would make him peck her as if the chicken didn't like her. Hmmmm . . . I wonder why?
I forgot to get a good picture of all the kids dressed up as their parts, so this will have to do.
We took about 45 minutes to create characters, eat dinner, eat cake, and open presents. Joshua opened the presents while his friends ate cake. I told him he could eat cake later if he didn't have time to finish. I was kind of rushing the kids because I had absolutely no idea how long this party was going to take.
Joshua was dressed as a super spy named Samuel Keen Diggory.
After dinner, the guests were invited into the drawing room to hear the will be read. I had prepared envelopes to hold the different parts of the will. I pretended to open up the will and read "Welcome. I would like for everyone to enjoy a piece of my favorite treat before reading the rest of the will." The servant (aka Nathan) then passed around a silver tray with little robin's eggs in candy cups for everyone to take a piece. After everyone had eaten the candy, I said "now Mr. Negg asks that we watch this video." I then opened "envelope 1", pulled out a dvd, and turned it on. Nathan helped make this video, and it cracks me up every time. You can tell when he's trying to remember exactly what I said and when he's just improvising:
I clarified to the kids what the video had said: "So Mr. Negg is convinced one of you killed him so he has poisoned all of us and we have to figure out who did it before we can get the antidote." I then gave the kids each a little notebook and pencil to write down notes on, as well as a list of questions they might want to ask the people in the room to help them get started. The questions were:
"How did Mr. Negg die? (the policeman answers this one)
How was the Negg School for Chickens doing financially? (lawyer and/or assistant chicken keeper answers)
Did Mr. Negg have any enemies? (Butler answers)
What were you doing the night Mr. Negg died? (all can answer)
Who receives the most money in the will?" (lawyer answers)
Before the party I had given scripts to the house staff so they were prepared to answer these questions. Rather than type them all up again in this post, you can access the document here.
As lawyer, I was able to help guide the children's questions if they got stuck. It was funny because even though they had a list of questions in front of them, there were still times when no one could think of anything to ask. I'd have to say "look at the paper!"
But the kids finally did figure out that (spoiler alert!) the Negg School for Chickens was not doing well as circuses were no longer interested in chicken performers. Mara, the assistant chicken keeper, was trying to convince Mr. Negg to sell the chickens as food, but Mr. Negg wouldn't hear of it. So Mara slipped a piece of chicken into Mr. Negg's ice cream which he had before bed every night, convinced that if he tasted how delicious chicken was he would change his mind. But unfortunately Mr. Negg liked to swallow his ice cream really fast and didn't notice the chicken, which had a small bone in it, which became lodged in his throat and killed him. Mara performed a very dramatic confession and apology. The poor unfortunate girl was carted off by the police and the rest of the beneficiaries were left to figure out where the antidote was.
After the kids had solved the mystery of "who killed Mr. Negg", I opened up the envelope which was supposed to be the antidote. BUT it was not the antidote! It contained two pieces of paper with the letters "A" and "N", as well as a coded clue which would lead to another clue, etc . . . That tricky Mr. Negg was not making this easy for us! I told the kids we had better hurry because we only had about 30 minutes before the poison killed us all!
Joshua's only request for this party was that we have no competitive games. He doesn't like them. The idea of us all working through games together for a common goal is how this whole murder mystery idea got started in the first place. Each time they found a new clue, they also found two letters which would end up spelling a word. The games played were:
1st - the kids had to figure out a coded message. It ended up reading "the chickens got loose in the basement".
2nd - they all ran to the basement and started hunting for easter eggs. Inside the easter eggs they found two more letters, "S" and "L", as well as puzzle pieces. The puzzle showed a picture of toys, so the kids ran up to the toy room where they found another envelope.
3rd - this envelope had the letter "O" and told them that two of their players had just lost their voices due to the poison. They had to do charades to get their friends to say "Why did the chicken cross the road." This was actually very funny. Jason and I were shaking our heads. The kids had managed to figure out that the phrase had 7 words, that the first 2 were "Why did" and then they figured out "chicken" and they still couldn't get it. Then some of the kids were saying "Why did the chicken dance? Why did the chicken . . .?" Hah. So funny. Finally someone figured out "road", and then Jason had to say "kids. come on. why did the chicken blank blank road? you can do this". And then someone got it. Yikes. We'll chalk it up to the excitement of the party. I told them the answer to the question was "because they were hungry" and we all went into the kitchen to find the next envelope.
4th - The next envelope had the letter "L" and told them that one of their friends had just lost use of their legs from the poison. That player was going to have to kneel and hold a bucket on their head while everyone else threw marshmallows into the bucket. We had to get 50 marshmallows in the bucket in 60 seconds to pass this test. The kids had to do it twice before they got the right amount. There was a lot of laughing with this game. (tip: leave the mini marshmallows out for a while to harden before the party. Then you won't have a sticky mess on your hands if people step on them). The kids could go and collect the marshmallows if they ran out but had to go back behind the line before they could throw them again.
5th - The last envelope had the letters "O" and "B" and told the players that they all just lost the use of their arms and hands. Their last task was to clean up the hen house of all the feathers. I had spread craft feathers all over the room. Some kids used their toes and some kids used their mouths (yes, really!) to pick up the feathers and put them in the bucket. There was no time limit, but we were running out of time before the poison killed us at this point. I had wished I had told the kids we had 45 minutes instead of 30 to complete all these tasks! But luckily the kids got it done pretty quickly and we still had 5 minutes to figure out the letters and find the antidote.
The kids figured out that the letters spelled the word "BALLOONS" and they raced to find the balloons hanging up in the house. I pointed out that they didn't need to pop all the balloons, just shake them and find the one with the antidote. (Before the party I had stuck some Mike and Ike's in a plastic bag and put the bag in a balloon.) They found the balloon, popped it, and everyone was saved from the poison with two minutes to spare - except for the butler because it turned out I put in one too few candies. Oops.
Phew. What a party, right? But wait, it's not done!! (seriously you guys, I asked myself several times while frantically planning this thing "why am I doing this?")
After we were all safe, we went back to the drawing room to finish reading the will. Mr. Negg split the bulk of his estate between the Butler (who turned out to be his long lost son, see the script) and his favorite chicken Bob. But everyone else received $275. I handed out play money and announced that Bob and the Butler had gone through the estate and picked out some things neither of them wanted which would now be auctioned off.
yay! Money!
This was probably the kids' favorite part of the evening. I had about 18 items, mostly from the dollar store or target dollar aisle. I had written down a list of the items for my reference and put them all in a box. I pulled them out one at a time and started bidding at 5 or 10 dollars. The kids were supposed to go up in increments of 5 or greater. This was tricky for the kids because they didn't know if they should spend all their money at the beginning or wait until the end. The things at the beginning went for pretty cheap because the kids were saving their money for something better. I told the kids that pretty much everything was just something small and not to expect big prizes but just spend their money already!
For fun I had a few joke items thrown in. Item number 4 was a pair of Mr. Negg's favorite socks (which I had hid some extra play money in). 4 items were hidden in bags and the kids had to bid on them sight unseen, although I did give them clues such as "These items belonged to Mrs. Negg" (it was candy jewelry). One child ended up buying a bag of "items found in Mr. Negg's personal quarters" for $200. It contained 2 bandaids, a roll of toilet paper, soap from a hotel, and a crazy straw. Everyone got a good laugh about that, and the boy was a good sport. I gave him some chocolate coins later because I felt bad he spent so much of his money on it.
Other items I auctioned included a can of sprite, colored pencils, glow sticks, strawberry nesquik, chapstick, fun pencils, and small candies. Once the auction was over, the kids continued to trade things with each other and some started collecting the pretend money to take home.
In addition to whatever auction items they had won, the kids each took home a bottle of extra antidote to help cure any leftover symptoms of the poison. I found these cute little bottles at the dollar store and made some printable labels and filled them with Mike and Ikes. Empty pill bottles would have worked well too, but I didn't have any nor did I have time to order them. (a lot of people have emailed and asked for the "antidote" label file because apparently the one I linked is blurry. I am sorry but I can't find the original file on my computer!! I must have deleted it.)
To review, there were 4 parts of the party:
1- create characters, dinner, cake, presents (about 45 minutes)
2 - figure out who killed Mr. Negg (about 20 minutes)
3 - find the antidote (about 30 minutes, but I wish I had given them 45)
4 - the auction (about 30 minutes)
So yes, I went a little overboard, especially given my time restraints, but it was a really fun party and one that the guests talked about much after.
I hope someone else uses these ideas too, so that my work is able to benefit someone else! Let me know if you end up throwing your own murder mystery party!
For Nathan's Castle party, I decided to make some easy no-sew felt Knight tunics for the kids to wear. In the past knight birthday parties, I used a silver plastic table cloth for knight armor, but thought felt would be just as easy to cut and would last longer for the kids.
I bought grey 72 in. wide felt at the fabric store. I only bought a yard, and it was on sale for $3. It was a great deal! I cut the fabric into 12x36 in. pieces (so I was able to get 6 costumes out of the yard of fabric).
I folded it in half and cut a hole in the middle for the head, plus a slit a few inches down the back so it was easier to put on. (see picture)
To make the fleur-de-lis on the front, I used my silhouette cameo. If you don't have one of these machines, you can cut something out by hand, but I would definitely make it a simpler shape.
I first cut a 10x10 piece of shiny fabric I had leftover from making a superhero cape long ago. I cut a piece of heat n' bond to match and ironed it on the back of the fabric. Then I was able to put it through my machine. Once it cut the material, I just pulled it off and ironed it on. It was very simple.
I cut slits of red and black felt to use as belts. Just tie them around the waist and you have a very simple knight costume for halloween or your next knight party.
In blogging about the parties from this past weekend, I realized I never posted about Nathan's party back in September! So here it is, a bit late.
This kid is too cute. And so spoiled.
Funny thing about Nathan is that he always wants to be the bad guy; he always pretends to be Captain Hook, or Darth Vader, or a scary dragon when the kids play together. So pirates were right up his alley. (we're hopeful he'll grow out of this stage eventually.)
I have done pirate parties before, and you can check out the one for Joshua from several years ago, but to make things a bit more interesting we did completely different games this time around.
When guests arrived, we handed them a pirate patch and hat and balloon sword. We then played "Captain Hook says". Whoever was Captain Hook got to hold the hook and tell the other pirates what to do in a pirate voice.
Then we did some dancing to pirate songs. One of Nathan's favorite songs is "Roll up the map" from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. He wasn't too happy though that the other kids weren't following him and doing the actions to the song like they were supposed to. That is why he is sitting and pouting rather than dancing.
Oh boy, when are they going to yell? The suspense is so exciting!
The kids' favorite game was "Don't Eat Pirate Pete!". I bought some clipart online for maybe $5 and made this game board. We used mini m&ms for the game pieces. To play, you place one candy on each square. The kids take turns being 'it'. One child closes their eyes while the others decide which picture is going to be "Pete" for the round. Then the child opens his eyes and begins slowly eating the m&ms one by one. When the child touches the candy in the square designated as "Pete", the kids all yell "Don't Eat Pete!" or in this case "Don't Eat Pirate Pete!". The kids had a lot of fun with this game.
Don't Eat Pirate Pete!!!! We were really into it, as you can see.
The last game we played was to hunt for buried treasure. I had filled a container with rice and thrown in little prizes that Nathan had picked out; individually wrapped twizzlers, gold plastic coins, and ocean creature fruit snacks. I think we let each child find 5 or 6 things (although there was only 1 fruit snack per child).
We then had cake and ice cream. I made a simple cake this time around. I just made a 9x13 cake and cut and stacked it to look sort of like a ship. I put m&ms around the outside and stuck some parchment paper on a skewer for a flag. He thought it was cool.
After cake and ice cream and opening presents, the kids went home with their own laminated "Don't Eat Pirate Pete!" game board (I had stuck instructions of how to play on the back), a little bag of m&ms for playing pieces, and whatever treats they had found while treasure hunting. The whole party lasted just one and a half hours and the kids had lots of fun.
Completing our trio of parties last weekend was a Minecraft Party for Joshua who had turned 9 several months before. All of my kids have been Minecraft obsessed for the last few months. We only have the pocket version on our iPads, but that's sufficient for them to be hooked.
Coloring or craft activities are great for getting a party started as the guests arrived. I googled "minecraft coloring page" and Joshua picked out a picture to print and color for the party. The boys also wrote their names on a paper bag to collect their loot in.
silly Joshua missed the pig on purpose
We started with a rousing game of "Pin the tail on the Pig". It probably would've been wise to skip this game when I realized we had 10 boys coming to the party (12 when you include the little brothers) because it took soooooo long to give everyone a turn. This was Joshua's idea though, so we went with it.
Next came our mining game. The boys got really excited about this game. It also took a long time with so many boys participating.
Any kind of cubes will work for this game. I had some foam cubes that also double as math manipulatives in our homeschool. I cut out little pictures of minecraft elements that are found while mining in the game. I made 12 each of 5 different elements: coal, diamond, iron, redstone, and gold. Joshua taped them to the foam cubes. I stacked them up with other non-marked cubes to make a pyramid of sorts. (I tried creating a document to share the images, but couldn't get it to work. Sorry. Just google the images and resize on your own document.)
The boys took turns "mining". The first round we let them choose 4 blocks and see if they found anything. In subsequent rounds, we increased the number they could take since it was taking longer than anticipated. Once they had found 4 items, they were done mining and just watched the other boys take turns. At the end they turned in their elements for candy which they put in their party bags. Some boys tried trading with each other if they had all of one element and wanted a bit of diversity. We had bought gold coins for the gold and red Lifesavers for the redstone. We had blue sixlets for diamond, black sixlets for coal, and gray sixlets for iron. (did you know you can buy packs of one color sixlets? I didn't.)
After we mined, we went down to the basement to fight creepers. I had strung up creeper faces across the room that had point values assigned to them. The boys went 2 at a time trying to hit them with dodgeballs and adding up their totals to see who could get the most points. We gave them 3 shots each. I don't have a picture of the creepers hanging up for some reason. I guess I need to be a bit more specific with my photographer (aka husband). (Just kidding! You did a great job taking pictures sweetheart! You're the best!)
We then took down the creepers and split the boys into two teams to play some dodgeball. I think we said that one team were skeletons and the others were Steves and they were attacking each other, but really we just wanted to have some playing dodgeball so we made it work.
dodgeball is serious business
After cupcakes and ice cream, parents came to take their boys home. Joshua said his favorite part of the party was the mining game and the dodgeball and he was a happy boy. And I was a happy mom to be done with parties for a while.
