We threw an Amazing Race birthday party for our 7 year old daughter. To start, we divided everyone into teams of 2. We did this randomly; each child picked the name of an animal out of a hat, then without talking, the two with the same animal had to find each other. That became their team name.  Then each team got a different clue to go to a station." At each station they had to perform a task together in order to get their next clue. We sent the kids to different areas so there wouldn't be a backup. Like the television show there was one ROADBLOCK that only one team member could perform and there was a DETOUR -- a choice between two tasks. Some of the things they had to do were: count a bowlful of dried beans; toss a water balloon to each other without it breaking; build a replica of their team animal with marshmallows and toothpicks; one team member from each team had to eat a jar of baby food -- that was our reality show "gross eating" task; one team member had to wrap their teammate completely with toilet paper head to toe using an entire roll of TP; the team had to complete a "quiz" about the birthday girl -- they could ask adults for help with the answers but only one question per adult (lots of relatives were around). Teams had to keep all their clues they were given at each stop to prove at the end they went to all stations. The winning team won books.  The kids had a BLAST!!! Very important: the number of tasks must match the number of teams exactly or you may run into problems. I loved this idea because it involved all the adults at the party in some way (everyone was either a clue giver/judge or ref or answered questions from the quiz. Also the tasks can be made harder or easier depending on the age of the kids. We had 7-8 year olds so we kept it on the simpler side. Also it was a great way to include boys and girls at an age when interests seem to be going in very different directions. Seriously everyone told us it was the best birthday party they'd been to in ages!"