Hunger Games Birthday Party

Wow summer is almost over, I can't believe it.  It's been a busy one.  For this weeks post I thought I would share my sons 13th birthday party that we gave him this year. Matthew turned 13 and this was the first year without his friend Madelyn to celebrate and have a party together. Last year they had a Minute to Win It party with 24 of their friends. It was a huge event but Natasha (Madelyn's Mom) and I shared the planning and duties. It turned out great. (I think I might do a post on that party too).

So this year without Natasha I was on my own. Matthew decided he would like a Hunger Games party and I set out to explore the Internet to see what ideas I could find.  The biggest help was a blog post from Out of the Attic, check it out here. http://atticgals.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-to-throw-ultimate-hunger-games.html.  I used a lot of her ideas. I tweaked some to work for us but I want to make sure I give credit where credit is due.

Below is Matthew's 2013 Hunger Games Birthday Party.


1.  Matthew invited 15 of his friends to his party so we had 16 thirteen year old boys to play the game.  Jackson, Dylan and Sophie all younger siblings helped out by being the game makers.  Below is the invitation that we mailed out to all of his friends.

2. A week before the games I sent an email reminder with the following message.

3.  Pre-Game planning consisted mostly of creating their game bags/party bags and planning the games.  The bags consisted of the following.

•  Sleep Syrup: I created a sleeve in Photoshop to go around the Coke bottles.  I got the smaller single bottles, they were 16.9 oz obviously smaller than the 20 oz.

•  I picked up small water pistols and little finger lights from Amazon and put one in each bag.

• Each bag also had one Smores Candy bar.

• I found a template that I purchased from Party Scribbles on etsy for Tracker Jacker anti-venom labels you place on Bath and Body works mini hand sanitizers.  http://www.etsy.com/shop/PartyScribbles.

• 1 can of Silly String ( this was a hit during the battle)

• I used brown paper lunch bags and made labels of pictures of each district that I found on the Internet.

4. My Husband decided to dress up as Ceasar and I dressed up as Effie. Mike just wore a suit and tie and I found a wig and attempted to re create her make up.

5. Party time.

We held the party at a near by park that had some great hiding places that we thought would work well for the games.

We had a tent set up with the food on a table underneath.  The snacks consisted of fire fries, atomic bombs, Mike and Ike's, cheese puffs, fruit, sodas, birthday cake and pizza.

• Register for the Reaping: 4:00 to 4:15

As the kids arrived we had them register for the reaping. I had my game makers Sophie and Jackson helping with this.  We set up a table in front of the tennis court ( the court was surrounded by chain link fence so it was a nice addition that added to the feeling they were entering the reaping. 

Each kid signed their name and for the blood portion we used a red stamp that they used to leave a thumb print on their paper. They put their name in the fish bowl and waited inside the tennis court area. We had the Hunger Games theme playing as well.

Items needed:

Fsh bowl

Small paper strips (sign in papers that go into the fish bowl)

Pens

Red stamp pad

Baby wipes to clean off their finger

• Districts Announcements:  4:15 to 4:25

After everyone arrived, we announced who would belong to what district by pulling names out of the fish bowl. I made two buttons for each district so when their name was drawn they received a button to wear and gathered with their teammate.  Since we didn't have enough players for all the districts we used districts 1 through 6 and districts 11 and 12. 

I used a bull horn which was a good thing because there was a band playing at a party that was being held at one of the houses behind the park.

• Training:  4:30 to 5:00

To prepare for battle we set up training areas for each tribute to practice their battle skills.   We had three training areas.

1. Berry Picking:

Each tribute was able to test their abilities to pick the correct berries for eating in hopes that they would be able to do so in the arena.

Items needed:

Raspberries

Salt

Sugar

Small cups

Half the raspberries were filled with sugar and the other half with salt. The tributes would do their best to guess which one was the sweet one. If they guessed correctly they got a sweet treat, if wrong a nasty surprise.

2.  Katness Target Practice:

Since we didn't have any bow's and arrows we created a training session using red solo cups and rubber bands.  We set up a table and stacked up three cups on the table. We had the tributes stand behind the line and use rubber bands to try to shoot and knock off the cups.

Items needed:

Solo cups

Rubber bands (sold at the dollar store in a big bag)

Table

Duct tape or chalk to draw out the line to stand behind

   3.  Tracker Jacker Keep Away:

This was a really fun game that I took from Out of the Attic blog.  We coned off a grassy section for the boundaries. The districts went up against each other in this 1 minute challenge.  The first team played the tracker jackers. They were given a sheet of dot stickers and they had 1 minute to sticker/sting the other team as much as they could. Then when the minute was up they switched. They had to stay within the cones. This was so much fun and exhausting too!

Items needed:

Dot stickers ( dollar store find)

Cones or something to line up the boundary lines

Watch or stop clock to keep track of the minute.

   4. Wardrobe Design: 5:00-5:15
The tributes gathered with their district teammate and one of them had to be the designer and the other the model.  They had 5 minutes to come up with their costume and then model the costume.  We then all voted for who we thought had the best design. If you are a crafter like me, you will have a ton of stuff that you can put out for them to use. I piled up anything and everything from fabric, tape, pipe cleaners you name it.

Items needed:

Anything for them to use to create a costume.

 Pizza time and Interviews with Ceasar: 5:15 to 6:15
 At this point the pizza had arrived so the tributes took a break to have a feast.  We gave them a few minutes to get their pizzas and then we headed over to the area were they would all be interviewed from Ceasar.
In this game each tribute would come up and sit in a chair next to Ceasar.  Ceasar would ask them silly questions or make them do something silly and the tribute could not laugh or smile, they had to play it seriously or they would lose.  After each was interviewed they would receive their gifts (aka. the party bag) from the audience of Panam.

Examples of questions used:

Twins:  As the only pair of twins we have ever had in the Hunger Games you are very intriguing to the viewers.  We have learned that you are very close friends, so close in fact that when you were your mom's womb you actually sucked each others thumbs and toes, how did you do that? 

Tucker:  We have high expectations for you in this tournament.  We all know you are a tough warrior, but we have heard you have a sensitive side as well that we would like to see.  We have learned that you helped train your sister for her participation in some beauty contests. Could you please show us the beauty contest waive, walk and curtsy that you taught her?

Hunger Games pre-game instructions: 6:15 - 6:30

At this point we told the kids to hang onto their bags that they received because they might need to use the items in battle.

For the first round of Hunger Games I took the idea that Out of the Attic used for their battle. Each tribute would draw a name out of the fish bowl. The name they drew was their target and they could only shoot and kill their target. They were not to let anyone know who their target was. If they killed their target they would take the dead tributes target and go after that person. About half way through I would call for a free for all and they could kill whoever they wanted. Note: after playing the game this way, the boys told me they preferred the free for all way to play the game. The next 3 battles they played after were all the free for all style.

Hunger Games Battle: 6:30 till finished

We used a half dome pop up tent for the cornucopia.  We loaded up the cornucopia and surrounding area with all sorts of weapons. Nerf guns, water guns, squirt guns, inflatable hammers, water bottles and bows and arrows. We filled back packs with some of these items and scattered other items all around the area leading up to the cornucopia.  In a semi-circle around the cornucopia we put black construction paper squares on the ground for each tribute to stand on. 

We instructed the players that every time they heard the gun shot that would mean that a tribute was out of the game. We used a cap gun for this.  We also told them that not to worry if they were out because they would be come part of the game makers and we had plans for them.  We also let them know to be aware of the tracker jackers (aka. Dylan, Sophie and Jackson who were armed with Hail Fire Nerf guns) if you were shot by one of the jackers you needed to use your tracker jacker anti-venom on the sting before you could return to the game.  (This was in the bags they received at the interviews with Ceasar).

The last one standing would win the game.

Tracker Jacker Jackson

When there were about 5 tributes knocked out of the game, we announced that the game makers were sending in a storm.  We gave the dead tributes/now turned into game makers a cooler filled with water balloons and told them to go after the living tributes and flush them out of their hiding spots.

The winner of this years Hunger Games was........ 

Tucker!

After the first game was finished the boys wanted to play again and again. We had plenty of time left so the boys played the games two more times.  After they ate cake and opened presents.  

The cake was made by a friend of mine Stacey. https://www.facebook.com/StaceyCakescupcakes

The party was a lot of work, but so much fun and I was very happy how it turned out. The boys had a blast, some said it was the best birthday party they ever went too! That made me smile!

Happy Creating!