Golden Party 6yr

My Daughter turned 6 on November 6, and we were having a lot of trouble finding Golden Birthday ideas.  We researched some ideas for Golden Anniversary and anything else we could find.  We happened upon some sights containing gold Rush" themed activities for summer camps and also some for scouting events along with a few ideas from some parties on this website.  After some collaborating of the ideas and discussing it with our 6 year old voila!  Here is what we came up with:  First we sent out invitations and printed a few for her to hand out to friends.  The invitations read "Come Join the Mother Lode of Fun! Although she is worth more than all of the gold in the world to us our little (____) has truned 6 on Nov. 6.  Come help us celebrate her golden birthday Gold Rush style.  Calling all prospectors to help her pan for gold eat golden foods and play some gold rush themed games." We included the date and time- we allowed three hours for the party and specified we would be doing snacks and cake only- no big meal.   For the RSVP part so we had Yes say "Eureka! There's gold in them thar hills and I wouldn't miss this opportunity!"  And Maybe said "Still panning our schedule to find the time."  And no said "Aww! That's fools gold!  We don't care to participate."  For the location we wrote " (our last name)Gold mine and our address.  When the children arrived we took their coats and gifts and they started their journey at the "DIY's General Store" where they gathered their supplies. At this station they made a pouch out of a 16" circle of felt with prepunched holes along the edges to thread a 32" chord through.  They also made a weather rock-  they braided a rock into some Jute chord tied to a key chain ring and attached an index card that read "Hang rock outside.  Dry Rock = It's Fair Wet Rock = It's Rainy Swaying Rock = It's Windy Can't see the rock = It's foggy The Rock is gone = There's been a tornado."  They also got to feel a pouch filled with plastic gold coins and guess how many were inside.  They put their answers in an old coffee can.  After the General Store they moved onto "Pyrite Pass Mountain Camp" to eat some vittles.  My table was covered with gold plastic that I found a big roll of and food ws served on plastic gold trays and gold paper plates.  We had Golden Delicious apple slices Goldfish crackers Rolled Gold Pretzels and  baby carrots (Karats- get it?).  After the mountain pass they moved onto "Sutter's Mill" (Which was my garage- I had signs posted naming each location).  In my garage they panned for gold - I had picked several ping pong ball sized rocks out of our landscaping and shook them in a baggy of gold acryllic paint then covered them in gold glitter before they dried.  I put them in the bottom of a large plastic rectangular tub and filled it with a big bucket of sand box sand and warm water.  They picked up a pie tin and scooped up some sand an water swished it around and collected their gold nugget.  Then they went into the back yard and searched for gold - I had thrown about 30 gold nuggets into my yard as well.  Once they had gathered one gold nugget from each location they followed the signs to the" Poverty Flats Assayers Office - turn in your gold nuggets for gold foil choclate coins.  Yes they're chocolate- this is Poverty Flats!)"  My father in law was sitting in the play house under my daughter's loft bed wearing a top hat and hamming it up.  He would take their nugget and inspect it closely and try to determine if it was real or not...then eventually let them keep their nuggets and gave them two choclate coins.  Then they headed to the "(our last name) Claim" for games.  Once in our yard they played three games.  The first one was Donkey Races- they picked a buddy and straddled a broom back to back.  Then three groups at a time (that's all the mops/brooms I had) they raced to ur fence and without turning around raced back- so one direction one of you is running backward but on the return trip that person is running forward and the other one is running backward.  As they each finished they got a gold mardi gras necklace for a prize.  Then we played Forty Ways To Get There- They ran a particular course around our yard but each person had to do it a way no one else did so the first person ran the next one walked then the next one hopped ran backward etc. As they finished they each got a pack of gold Nugget Bubble gum I ordered from OTC.  Then They got to do the ucky No. & pan toss.  They had 7 washers and stood on a tape line then tossed them into a big kettle a coffee can and a tuna can.  They got 1 pt for the big pot 2 pts. for the large can and3 pts. for the tuna can.  They got to pick a piece of candy out of a pot for each point they got.  They each played a few times then we headed back in for cake.  I made two cakes- One was white cake with gold sprinkles mixed in with pink frosting.  We decorated it with a rainbow and some plastic gold coins at the bototm and wrote "(___) you are our Pot of Gold!"  The other cake was chocolate with toffee pieces mixed in and chocolate frosting.  I used a bit of blue and green frosting to make a stream and grass then sprinkled it with little yellow ball sprinkles and wrote "(___) you are our gold nugget!"  We had her open gifts on a little chair all decorated with gold tinsel.  I always try to keep the present opening organized (ha!) so I had the guest sitting on their bottom the most patiently bring their gift from the pile to our daughter then took photos of them together with the gift (to send in the thank you card).  Then that guest picks up the wrapping paer and tosses it while I pick the next most patient person.  It worked very well!  (Amazing!)    Then we had some time to kill so I read them some history of the gold rush but to make it fun I had them yell Eureka whenever I said the word Gold and There's Gold in them thar hills every time I said the word Mine etc.  I also had found some jokes on line. "Knock knock.  Who's there?  Nugget.  Nugget who?  Nugget off you're bothering me!" ANd we counted the gold coins from the puch.  There were two winners who got a million dollar candy bar.   As guest's parents showed up my daughter handed them a little glittery card we had made that said "Thank you for coming to my party.  Aren't you glad that you weren't tardy? We played some games and had some fun and gold was found by everyone! Eureka!"  And then it had her name and birthdate and phone number.  Everything went very well.  The only ting I would suggest is a smaller group of kids.  We had 24 ranging in age from 3-8 mostly 6 year old girls.  And the threading of the pouch and the braiding of the weather rock was a bit trying.  Thank goodness lots of parents stayed so we had many adult hands helping their own kid and another or two.  She had a blast and said she wants to do it again next weekend!  "