For my son's 7 year old party, he specifically wanted Star Wars Episode III as the theme. Simplicity was definitely the key.
Decorations:
I hung some black crepe paper and cut out of black posterboard the words, "STAR WARS" just like it's design. I cut out of black posterboard a silhouette of Yoda. I bought a poster of Epis III at the discount store. We blew up about 20 black balloons. I had the table with a black posterboard placemats that I cut out, Star Wars plates, black napkins and forks. I. Balloons: As each child came, they went crazy over the balloons and just entertained themselves until everyone arrived. They were having so much fun I let them play with them for several more minutes. II. Book: I got the "Revenge of the Sith Scrapbook" from the library and showed the kids the pictures. There were some kids who had not seen the movie, so this helped them. All the kids got so excited as each page was turned, seeing there favorite characters and yelling out who they were. I would ask if the character was good or bad and they would yell the answer with such pride of their own knowledge and my lack of! III. Mission: I told the kids there were 3 missions to complete and if they completed all 3 missions, they would get to go to the final battle. You should have seen their faces! They were as good as gold, they could hardly wait!!! The first mission was a word search puzzle. There are web sites that you can go to (just put in "word search puzzle") and you can create your own word search. My son was with me on the computer and told me all the names from the movie that he wanted to put into the puzzle. The kids really enjoyed this. Some kids had a harder time than others, but I told them the mission was not complete until we helped everyone find all the words (approx 8 words). Teamwork was fabulous! The second mission was the meteor shower. I told them we were going to go in the back yard, but as soon as we entered, we would be entering into outer space. I told them to be extremely careful because sometimes there are meteor showers. I led them outside and my husband was on the roof throwing 1-2" loosely wadded up foil balls. The kids were laughing when they saw him, and started throwing them back at him. They were running all over the yard dodging them! (We hid a hershey's kiss in each one) The third mission and final mission was the death star. This was a pinata we bought and covered with foil. IV. The battle: To imitate the final battle in Epis III, I put a long piece of mask tape on the ground. I brought out 2 swimming noodles (did not cut them in half) and 2 kids had to stand on the tape and fight for 1 minute with their light sabers (noodles) without their feet coming off the tape, because that meant it was in the hot lava and they lost the battle. All the kids were judges. After each child got to battle, we ate cake (I bought a Star Wars cake) and opened presents. Then I let all the kids go back outside, gave each of them a swim noodle (blue or green) and they went to town!!!!!!!!! I let them play for the last 30-40 minutes outside. The parents had to drag them away when it was time to go home. I don't know if they would have ever stopped! The boys were in dreamland! (Bonus: This was not planned, but my husband out of know where came running outside with my son's darth vader mask, cape, and red light saber. The kids stopped for a second in shock that Darth Vader was here and then laughed and went straight for the attack. Darth Vader fell down and was completely outnumbered!) They each took home their "light saber", pinata candy, and what candy was left from the meteroites. There were a total of 7 boys. The party was 2hrs long.
