Secret Agent Party

Age of Birthday Boy: 10 years old
Age Range of Guests: 7-12 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 5-13+ years, depending on specific focus & activities



Invitations: The invitations were requests to join a top secret agency of spies.  Guests were asked to report to headquarters (our house) at a certain date and time for training to become secret agents.

Cake: This one was easy but still turned out great.  We made a stencil template on paper that read "TOP SECRET", placed it gently on a frosted 9x13 cake and sprinkled red sprinkles over top.  To make it neater we could have used a stiffer icing or a larger piece of paper but for the limited time we had to prepare we think it turned out really well.

Activities: As guests arrived their names were checked off the official secret agent training camp list.  They were given name tags to wear and each guest chose an alias or code name, marking their name tag with a fingerprint (using washable ink).

Guests were put into two groups of new recruits - it happened to be a girls team and a boys team this time but it didn't have to work that way.  The teams were instructed that they would go through secret agent training to see if they had what it takes to be a spy.  There would be stations to get through to test such qualities as teamwork, accuracy, agility, and problem solving.

Teamwork: This was essentially the human knot game - an old stand-by that remains a favorite.  The kids stood in a circle and reached across it to grab someone's hand.  Anyone's hand was fine as long as you weren't holding both hands of the same person.  Then they tried to untangle themselves into one big circle.  You could also try this blindfolded for a bigger challenge, or have only some kids blindfolded and/or some unable to speak.

Accuracy: In this challenge one of our secret agent instructors (aka: dad) sat by a tree.  The kids were given water balloons and told to break the balloons on the tree over the head of the instructor.  Points were awarded for correct placement, and deducted if you hit the instructor. Of course, some kids didn't care about the deductions so the instructor got fairly wet!!

Agility: Teams were given a rope with loops for handles and instructed to go through an obstacle course all together single file.  We set up chairs to crawl under, board to cross, hoops to jump through, etc.

Problem Solving: Here, teams were given some items and a task.  They had to create something long enough to reach and grab a key hanging on our play structure while they stood on the deck.  The kids had to figure out the best way to use the sticks, rope, and a hook to create something both long enough and strong enough to reach, grab, and retrieve the key.

Final Challenge: As kids were finishing up their last task it was announced that an urgent matter had come to the attention of the instructors.  Since all other active agents were currently assigned it had fallen to the new recruits to solve the mystery for the agency.  They were given clues and coordinates to a hidden stolen treasure.

The teams had to decipher the coded messages to determine the general location of the treasure.  Then they had to follow instructions for placing string from one spot, across the playground area, to another spot.  This was done 3 times.  Where all the strings crossed is where they were to dig for the treasure (sort of an X marks the spot kind of thing!).  Each team had a different specific location in the same general area.

Both teams found their treasure which meant all the new recruits graduated form their training and were granted full secret agent status.

Goodie Bags: Kids were given certificates of completion and they also kept their new recruit name tags. In addition to various candies and chocolates, the goodie bags included a stick-on mustache and sunglasses to help with their spy disguises.  Each child also got a pen and notepad as well as a spy decoder ring.

This party was a bit more work to pull together as far as planning the activities, but was so much fun - as long as you don't mind kids digging up your yard! Fortunately we were getting our playground area ready for wood chips so it was ready for the purpose.  A sandbox would work just as well.

Ballet, Dance

Age of Birthday Girl: 8 years old
Age Range of Guests: 5-10 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-12 years, depending on specific focus & activities

When our middle child turned 8 she was taking dance class and wanted a ballet birthday party.  (Who knew at the time that this recreational dance class would turn into the hours and hours of dance it is today?!)

Invitations: We cut ballet slipper shapes out of pink card stock and glued them onto white card stock.  A pink bow was added to the front with "You're invited... (A little bit like this...).  Party details were printed on the back.

 Cake:  We used a 9x13 cake pan and then created a template out of wax paper and carved ballet slipper shapes out of the cake. These were then covered with pink frosting with white in the middle for the inside of the shoes.  Pearlized candy was added around the edge of the white area with a small frosting bow on the toe.  Real pink ribbon was added to turn them into pointe shoes. We were greatly inspired by this tutorial.

Activities: The party guests each decorated crowns found at Oriental Trading Company using stickers, jewels, ribbon, and markers.

The kids also had the chance to take strips of ribbon and tulle to create a simple tutu by tying the strips onto a main waistband piece of ribbon.  Most guests didn't finish at the party and took strips of cloth home with them to finish it up there.

 They all got a brief ballet lesson, led by Dad of course - what a good sport! - and then we played a version of musical chairs where the kids had to dance around the basement and when the music stopped they went to a photo of a ballerina in a certain pose.  They had to copy the pose as they stood next to it.

Then, in two teams, they created poses with props and costumes. The other team got to look at it briefly and then the original team would change something.  The other team had to figure out what had been changed.

Another variety of this game would be to have one team create a pose and the second team looks at it briefly. Then that second team has to recreate it themselves.

Goodie bags: Pink and blue goodie bags were filled with candy treats, ballet/dance stickers, ballet pencils and notepads, hair scrunchies, and bracelets.

Tinkerbell, Fairy Party

Age of Birthday Girl: 5 years old
Age Range of Guests: 3-9 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 2-10 years, depending on specific focus & activities

Invitations: We didn't get very creative with these this year and just bought some Tinkerbell Invitations from the party store.  (Doesn't happen often since part of the fun for the kids is to make their own invitations but this year just didn't come together in time).  The envelopes had related fairy stickers.

Cake:  The cake this year was fun and easy to make.  It was a regular round double layer cake covered in green frosting.  Blue frosting was used to create a small pond with flower sprinkles to act as lily pads.  We found a Tinkerbell cake topper which we placed next to the pond along with some candy flowers.  For a nice finishing touch we placed fake flowers around the base of the cake.

Activities: Fairy themed games were the theme of the day.  We had the kids do a relay race to place fairy flowers along the path.  One child placed a flower then the next would pick one up and run across the flowers that were already placed to put another one down.  They would then run back along the flower path to tag the next person in line and so on.  Once all the flowers were placed the entire team had to run across the flower path one at a time.  Meanwhile there were parents who were blowing bubbles along the path, just for fun!

We took the kids outside for a scavenger hunt of fairy items and locations.  They had to collect items to later create a fairy house.  We also provided fake flowers from the bunch we had used to decorate the cake.  Somehow we managed to not have any photos of the finished products (??!!) but the kids had great fun.  We had also placed hidden fairy messages in our garden which the kids had to find and decode - messages about where to find fairies and how to create great places for them to live.

Goodie bags: Green paper bags filled with Tinker-bell items such as pencils, stickers, notebooks, and jewelry.  We included some candy and chocolate as well.

Olympics, Summer

Age of Birthday Boy: 9 years old
Age Range of Guests: 7-12 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 6-14 years, depending on the specific focus & activities, and how physically difficult you make each event

Our son's 9th birthday coordinated nicely with the timing of the Beijing Olympics so it was a natural party theme idea and he was thrilled.


Invitations: Invitations were easy but unfortunately there is no photo.  We drew the Olympic Rings on white card stock and put party information the back.  We found some flag stickers to decorate the envelopes.

Cake:  Again, this one was very easy - Olympic Rings out of colored frosting with a white background on a 9x13 cake.  We also had cupcakes with the same design.

Activities:  This was the highlight!  The kids had to register as they arrived for the party, receiving numbers, and choosing a country to represent.  We had flags from various countries and each child chose one to carry during our opening ceremony.  We even had a "torch" to light (cardboard box and tissue paper)!

The guests were sorted into groups to rotate through stations.  Events included javelin (broomstick), shot put (bocce balls), high jump (using a mattress to land on), long jump, basketball, and soccer.

We also had a station where the kids had to identify countries by their flags with points earned for how many could be completed correctly.
After the games were completed, medals were awarded to the guests (everyone received one), and we had our closing ceremony complete with the Olympic Fanfare music.  Then it was on to cake & ice cream!

Goodie Bags: We filled red party bags with candy and various Olympic themed items such as stickers, pens, etc.  They also kept their flags and we took a picture of each child receiving their Olympic Medals to send along with thank-you cards.

Strawberry Shortcake

Age of Birthday Girl: 7 years old
Age Range of Guests: 5-10 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-10 years, depending on specific focus & activities

Invitations: We cut out strawberry shapes from red card stock and glued party information to the back with a "you are invited" sticker on the front.  SC stickers were added to decorate the card and the envelope.

Cake: Using a simple template we cut a round cake into the shape of a strawberry.  Red frosting (it turned out more of a deep shade of pink but still looked OK) covered the cake.  We used yellow jellybeans as the seeds and green fruit roll-ups for the stem and leaves.

Games & Activities: Our first activity was a simple craft.  We found some inexpensive small plastic storage containers in red, pink, and purple at a craft store (Michael's).  Using various stickers, ribbon, and markers the party guests decorated their containers.

Next we created a SC scavenger hunt.  Guests were divided into four teams based on SC characters.  Each team was required to find items both inside and outside
the house, such as the longest blade of grass, something yellow, etc.  After a set amount of time teams gathered to compare results and a winner was declared.


Finally, we did a musical chairs or relay sort of game with pictures of SC characters on paper plates scattered around the basement. Teams had to race to find matches for characters and freeze when the music stopped.  Anyone with a match kept their plates.  Left without a match and you went to the back of your line to try again.  The team who got all the matches first won the game.

Goodie bags:  These were simple pink or red paper bags filled with SC stickers, pencils, erasers, and costume jewelry.  The boys' bags has bug themed items instead of SC.  All bags also included a small assortment of candy.

Hello Kitty

Age of Birthday Girl: 4 years old
Age Range of Guests: 2-7 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-12 years, depending on specific focus & activities

Invitations: Invitations for this party used a simple cut-out of Hello Kitty glued onto pink card stock. The party information was included on the back.

Cake: We took a basic round cake and decorated it using the image of Hello Kitty that we found on some stickers as sort of a template. Frosting was used to make the face and whiskers, with jelly beans for the eyes, nose, and the flower in her hair. We added some sprinkles for extra color and had cupcakes with the candy in the flower shape. We also found some Hello Kitty candles which worked very well on the cake.

Games & Activities: We had a craft for the kids as they arrived. They each had a foam bookmark to decorate as they wished with stickers, markers, and ribbon.

Then we played a game of pin-the-bow-on-Hello-Kitty that we had created for the event. We drew a large Hello Kitty on poster board and then made bows with sticky tape to use in the game.

The other game was a version of Bingo using pictures of Hello Kitty doing various activities. We created the board games by cutting & pasting pictures on the computer into different sequences and combination on each card.

Goodie bags: It was easy to fill bags with all sorts of fun Hello Kitty items from stickers to pencils and erasers to jewelry, etc. We added a few candy treats as well.

Letterboxing

Age of Birthday Boy: 8 years old
Age Range of Guests: 5-10 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 5-13+ years, depending on specific focus & activities

You could very easily do a geo-caching version of this party, especially with an older crowd, but that is an activity we didn't discover until later.

Invitations: The front of the invitation had a compass rose on it and the coordinates of our home. Inside were party details, a map, and a request to come ready to explore outside (socks or long pants, hat, sunscreen, etc).

Cake: The cake was very simple for this party. A round cake was turned into a compass rose design. Cupcakes in coordinating colors had frosting magnifying glasses on them with letters that spelled out a happy birthday message.

Games: The main event for this one was letter-boxing. Ahead of time we planted two letterboxes in a nearby forested area. We then created clues to help the party guests find the boxes. Once the guests had arrived we divided them into two teams (it happened to be older kids and younger kids).

The kids all got a letter-boxing pack which later served as their goodie bag. It was a simple drawstring backpack from Oriental Trading Company. Inside was a compass, a notebook and pencil, a water bottle, a small snack, and a rubber stamp of their choosing with an ink pad (washable ink). A grown-up in each group also carried extra water, a small first-aid kit, wipes for washing hands, and a cell phone to keep in contact with the other group to gauge progress.

The kids had to follow specific instructions to get to the forest and look for the clues to help them find the box once they were there. The two groups set off in different directions once we got to the forest. They would eventually find both boxes but started with different ones to make it less crowded as we walked.

Once a box was found each child stamped their own stamp into the notepad inside the box and left a note in the notebook. Then they used the stamp from the box to make a mark in their own notepad. We stopped for a snack when the two groups met mid-way between the two boxes. Once both groups had found both boxes we walked back home for cake & ice cream.

Goodie Bags: The kids each had their own draw-string backpack as their goodie bag. They got to keep it, the compass, rubber stamp, notepad, and pencil, plus we added candy and stickers once we returned home. In addition each child was given general instructions for letter-boxing and websites for their parents to look up if they were interested in doing it as a family.

This was a super party. The one event took the entire time making planning easy, and the kids loved the detective/exploring part of letter-boxing. For most party-goers this was their first exposure to the activity.