Magic Tree House -8yr- Souvenir Treat Bags

Magic Tree House Party, 8 yr. old 

INVITATIONS:  We created our own invitations by using clipart off the Magic Tree House website.  The outside showed a picture of Jack and Annie and read "Travel around the world and through time with Jack and Annie AND SARA (my daughter).... The inside continued "at a Magic Tree House Birthday Party!"  Then all the pertinent party info of course.  A picture of the Magic Tree House was also on the inside.  The back of the invitation had a map downloaded from mapquest so new friends could easily find our home.  It was printed out in color and folded and looked very nice.   

DECORATIONS:  My husband built a Magic Tree House in our basement out of three pallets as walls and a cardboard roof.  A rope ladder was laid on the floor leading into the tree house.  I painted a huge tree on a roll of brown paper and taped it to the wall beside the tree house.   

AS KIDS GATHERED:  I printed out a Magic Tree House maze and word search (again from the website)that the kids could do at the dining room table while waiting for everyone to arrive.   

GAMES:  When all the kids were there (ages ranged from 5 - 10 yrs. old), we gathered at the top of the basement steps, and I set up the scenario that they were going to climb aboard the magic tree house and travel back in time.  The kids (all ten of them) packed in the tree house, and then the fun began.  I began by saying that the wind began to blow, (a fan turned on blowing into the house), and then the tree house began to spin faster, and faster, (lights went out & strobe light went on. Kids were screaming and laughing.)  And then suddenly everything was still, absolutely still (Lights went on.  Fan stopped). 

Then I handed my daughter a magic tree house book and asked where they were?  This bit was repeated between every game, and the kids loved it!  Heard the comment, "I could actually feel it spinning!"  So, where did they land & what did they do there?  For each game I set up a scenario of what they had to do to collect their souvenir.  Kids had treat bags to collect their souvenir/prizes. 

DINOSAURS BEFORE DARK -  T-Rex has scared the Mama Dinosaur away.  Help her hatch her eggs before he comes back. Music is Walk that Dinosaur.  Kids sit on balloons to pop them.  Each balloon has a piece of paper inside.  If the paper has a dinosaur printed on it, collect your souvenir (little dinosaur notebook). 

PIRATES PAST NOON - The pirates buried their treasure on this island.  They're coming back for it, but if the kids hurry they can get it first.  At this point the music comes on with Yo Ho A Pirates Life For Me playing softly.  The kids were split into pairs each with a different color clue paper. 

I just printed all the clues out and glued them to different colored strips of construction paper.  This way the kids all went to the same places but at different times so it wasn't a mob scene,  and they all ended up at the same place to find the treasure - bags of chocolate coins.   They hurried back to the tree house, all screaming for the last pair to hurry, as the music got louder and my husband called out in his best pirate voice as the pirates got closer to the island!

AFTERNOON ON THE AMAZON - I painted a scene of ferns and plants which I wrapped around a chair.  I balanced 3 rubber poison dart frogs on the back of the chair and the kids had to help the natives by shooting the frogs with a nerf ball gun thay had luckily brought with them.  The frog they shot off the chair they kept as the souvenir.  Music was In The Jungle.  The kids were cheering for each other as they shot off the frogs. 

THE KNIGHT AT DAWN - The kids were in medieval times and the child wearing the jester's hat had to make the king or queen wearing the crown and sitting on the throne laugh or smile by telling a joke or being silly.  The child was then rewarded with a ring lollipop, and became the next royalty, and a new jester tried.  Music was general circus type music.     

CAKE:  By now we all needed a break so after another spin in the treehouse, they ended up with VACATION UNDER THE VOLCANO.  They all trooped upstairs to the dining room for snacks, cake, and ice cream.  We used general Happy Birthday type paper goods and balloons.  Then  I brought out the volcano cake.  I found this recipe on the internet.  The cake looked like a volcano and had little plastic trees around the base of it.  And then, I made the cake erupt.  First steam came out and then lava bubbled up and over.  The kids loved this!  Their faces were just in awe and amazement.  As I was too since I didn't know how this was really going to work!   

PRESENTS:  After the eating was done, they had another spin in the treehouse and landed at MUMMIES IN THE MORNING.  I had wrapped a Magic Tree House book in birthday paper for each child and wrote a number on the present.  These went on the floor in a circle.  Then my daughter sat in the middle of the circle and chose numbers out of a had while the kids all danced around like Egyptians to the music Walk Like An Egyptian, of course.  Then the child who's number was chosen gave my daughter her present to open while she/he opened the book. 

I told them if they already had that title to trade, but we only needed to do one trade.  I ordered the books through my daughter's school and Scholastic Book Club in a pack so they were really quite inexpensive.   Well, the party lasted two hours, and all the time was filled.  The kids had so much fun!  They loved the strobe light. (From Target, $10) and the expressions on their faces for the erupting volcano cake was priceless.  My daughter was thrilled with the party & will remember it forever!