To celebrate my son's fifth birthday, we had a King Arthur party at the local park. For invitations, I purchased paper crowns at a teacher supply store (36 for $6.00!)and wrote in
calligraphy, "Princess Samantha of New Orleans...You are invited to a KING ARTHUR PARTY in honor of Andrew's 5th Birthday." along with date, time, RSVP, and raindate. I also
listed the activities in small lettering along the jeweled peaks, "Holy Grail Hunt," "Shield Decorating," "Banana Jousting," "Camelot Castle Cake,"
"Slay the Dragon(piņata)", "Merlin's Magical Punch," "Sir Lancelot's Lance Toss," and "The King and Queen's Coloring Table."
Most of the ideas were from birthdaypartyideas.com. It sounds like a logistics nightmare, but it was really quite simple. I did minimal food and drink. A friend made a beautiful Camelot Castle Cake, and Merlin's Magical Punch was apple juice, 7-up, and rainbow sherbet (which fizzes-don't put it in too early) in a plastic cauldron. I ordered the 2 inch goblets from Birthday Express for the hunt in the park sand pit and hid them before the party. Each guest was given a paper lunch bag for their goblet and the "dragon guts." he dragon piņata, knight paperware, and crowns & tiaras for party favors. I used their website coloring pages, as well as some teacher resources for the coloring table station and shield design. Sir Lancelot's ring toss was manned by two older guests who helped the little ones toss King Arthur's crown onto our Excalibur sword. Banana jousting was the big hit. We had two participants dress in knight costumes (shield, helmet, armor) and charge at each other from the opposite side of the "ring." The shy kids gave the signal to go while our two jousting knights ran at each other with their bananas. The rules were that they couldn't get any banana on each other. The winner was the one left with more banana after a joust. It was surprisingly civilized and great, great fun!