Survivor Party

"Survivors are you ready?" For us Survivor fans, a Survivor Birthday party is the perfect birthday party. The invitations we made ourselves. We took some images that had a jungle look to them and altered them with our information. We printed them out on parcement paper and then burnt the edges. They were a huge success! It did set the mood for the party.

When the boys arrived, we had them decorate "buffs" (white hankerchiefs) using markers. When they were done decorating them, we put them in a sack and drew names. That was how we decided on the teams. (We had planned to mix the groups up again if one team was winning all the competitions.) The boys came up with team names and we were ready for some fun competitions. Our helpers and judges (our daughters) delivered tree mail to each group announcing the beginning of the games.

We had a lot of ideas for competitions. We narrowed it down to:

1. A spear throwing contest (one for accuracy and one for distance). We used dowels, electrical tape and bright feathers. We sharpened the dowels ourselves. Then the boys decorated the dowels with colorful electrical tape and feathers. This was the hit of the party! (We talked a lot about safety and always had an adult in the area supervising when the "spears" were being used.)
2. Tug of War
3. Obstacle course-the kids had to go around some tires with hoola hoops, cross a balance beam and then untie some knots and go back through the obstacle course.
4. Hoop shoot
5. Relay race-fill a bucket full of water and have the kids go acrossed the yard to fill another jar full of water.

We now came inside:
6. Yucky Food contest-the boys crab walked across the room, ate 4 sour gummy worms (showed the judges that the food was gone) and crab walked back across the room.
7. Endurance contest-the boys had to put a bean bag on their head and hold one leg up. Being still for a few minutes was a good thing!
8. Raft building-using dowels and string, the boys "built" a raft so they could leave the island. This was cooperative learning at its best! They were given no instructions on how to build it.

That was it for the games that night. The next morning, we had some digital photos printed of their party and the boys decorated the black magnetic foamies that I had cut out into rectangles. This was a momento of the party!

This was the best birthday party I've ever given (and with 3 kids, I've had a lot of them.) The boys were engaged and doing something more "adult". I also created a schedule of activities with fillers in case something took less time than I planned. We were outside in the middle of January doing some of these activities. While it was cold and sometimes rainy, I recommend going outside unless there is severe weather problems. Can YOU survive a Survior Party?