Survivor Party: My ten year old son wanted a spend the night birthday party this year.
He thought he was too old and cool for a theme party. There was a total of 6 kids at the party. I carved Immunity Idols for each child so that no one's feelings would be hurt by being voted off. The Immunity Idols were a 2 1/2 inch piece of dowel rod that I carved up with a dremel, painted brown and hung around their necks with a piece of jute string. I divided them into 2 teams with either red or blue bandanas. Since it was before Easter I hid the immunity idols and bandanas in Easter eggs and had the kids search for them. They thought there were only a couple of Immunity Idols so they really searched for them. They were on the team of whatever bandana they found. This kept them from picking teams. A scavenger type hunt would accomplish the same thing. We had 3 challenges. The first was the Potato/Pantyhose race. Each child had a pair of pantyhose with one leg tied around their waist and the other hanging down the back (like a tail) with a potato in it. There was a potato in front of them that they had to hit with the pantyhose tail (No use of the hands allowed!). The first team to get all their potatoes across the finish line wins! The second challenge was a balloon challenge. Each team was on their knees with a piece of string hanging between them (like a net). We had a ton of balloons on each side. We set a timer for 2 minutes and the team with the most balloons on their side at the end lost. This could also be used with socks or bean bags. The third challenge was an egg toss. We used raw eggs but if you wanted less mess you could use hard boiled. We lined each team up in a line with two dozen eggs. They were spaced far enough apart to make it a real challenge to catch the eggs. The last person had to gently toss the eggs in a bucket lined with newspapers without breaking them (small cracks were okay). This ended up being a real mess, but a ton of fun for the boys. The rewards for each challenge were 3 cans of shaving cream. Each team of 3 started out with 3 cans for their team. They earned 3 more cans for each challenged they won. At the end one of our teams had 6 cans of shaving cream and the other had 9 cans. When all the challenges were over the boys got to have a shaving cream fight. It was a real mess, but was the most memorable party they'll ever go to. By the end of the fight the boys were so covered they couldn't be identified. We had each boy shower and then they slept in tents in the garage (due to cool temps). Since my guest shower is near my garage we went through the entire party without any kids going past that bath into our house. You could have other rewards for the challenges to be less messy or something girls might like more. Their Immunity Idols, bandanas and flashlights were their goodies to take home. This was an incredible party for my son. It had all the ingredients to make 10 year old boys happy, competition and a messy fight!