For my son's 9th birthday we had a Knights in Shining Armor party because he loves anything to do with adventure and war. Using other sites, I followed several ideas and added a few of my own.
The invites read: Here ye, Here Ye! Knights of the realm! You are hereby requested to honour King Benjamin Ethan Alexander at his 9th birthday party on Sunday, May 28 from 1:00 â€" 4:00
PM at the Alexander Castle. Be prepared for jousting competitions, crossbow and archery practice, defending the kingdom from the evil giant of the land, the horridly ugly ogre and the fire
breathing dragon! Weapons, shields and helmets will be distributed. Afterward we will take a cool dip in the castle moat. I printed these on paper and attached them to silver painted
corrogated carboard shields, which I mailed and/or hand delivered. I had attached tied elastic through two holes in the center of the shields so a hand could simply be inserted between the
elastic and the back of the shield.
I added that children were to bring their shields to the party. I had extra shields at the house for extra siblings. Benjamin was all decked out in a red cape with ermine edging and a king's fancy crown. My husband and I rented gothic England royalty costumes and spoke with English accents so we could "play the part". When all 22 of Ben's friends arrived I dressed each child in a brown felt v-necked doublet I had made and tied a rope around the waist. They sat down to decorate their shields with a dragon picture found online and with jewels. I also had made the most awesome knight helmets ever from the website of the Cleveland Museum of Art. These I made from poster board and spray painted them silver. As children were getting all decked out, I took a few at a time to play our first game: Ring the Sword. I had bought these cool swords at the Dollar Tree and buried their tips in a dirt hill. We used mini fliers (frisbees) with holes in the center for kids to ring a sword, which they got to keep. Afterward they paired off and learned how to sword fight like a real knight (like I know!). I divided the kids into two groups for the next two games to save time. These games were Knock Out the Evil Giant of the Land and Lance the Knight. The knock out game involved a huge 9 foot wooden warrior dressed in chain mail (this was actually Goliath from our church Halloween festival) that the kids threw balls at and the head fell backward if hit. The kids got three tries and points were tallied. The lance game involved a razor scooter with a stick horse tied to it. Kids were to scooter across the walkway while holding a silver painted PVC pipe decorated to look like a real lance and knock the helmet off the knight, which was a simple wooden cross attached to a base and draped with a blanket. The helmet was another silver painted helmet that the kids were all wearing. They loved it and the wooden cross looked so cool with the blanket and helmet on top. I got that idea from a library book about knights. I had ordered a toy cross bow and painted a huge ogre from the original Shrek book and used these for our Horridly Ugly Ogre Attack game. Each child was given three chances to shoot the Ogre and points were tallied based on where it was hit. This took a while so we allowed the kids to run and play until it was their turn. Prizes were given for the winners. These were another type of very cool king's sword. The last game was to slay the fire breathing dragon, which was our pinata. We ate a dragon shaped cake I had made from a Wilton pan, opened presents, then swam for an hour or so in our pool/moat. This was a very successful and fun party with lots of preliminary work. Well worth it for my son who only has one birthday a year!
