Jedi Training Party 7yr - Galatic Treasure Hunt

This Clone Wars/Jedi Training party was for my son's 7th birthday party.  I did get some ideas from this website.  So thank you all!!

For invitations I printed off a colorful picture from a Star Wars website of Anakin, Yoda and Obi Won holding their cool light sabers and below it wrote down the details to the party.

I had them all bring their light sabers.  But I made sure there was some control over the light sabers as ten 7 year old boys can get crazy especially with a light saber in hand!!  So right when they came through the door they had to put their light sabers down until it was time for the Jedi training course.  When the guests first arrived I had prepared two sheets that I printed off from a Star Wars website.  One was a Jedi Maze" and the other was a "Spot the Difference" sheet of a Clone Wars scene.  This activity was to keep them all occupied until everyone came…although everyone came at the same time!!! 

So we gathered them all together and used the sheets later.  My husband gave some sort of speech about them being "allowed by the council to continue their Jedi training."  They each grabbed their light sabers and headed to the backyard where we had an obstacle course set-up.  My son the birthday boy demonstrated what each Jedi was supposed to do for their training.  While they ran through the obstacle course they had to carry "Yoda" (one of my daughter's teddy bears) zipped up in a backpack on their backs.  We have a climbing wall on our swing set so that is where they started and then went down the slide and from there they ran through the yard and avoided two huge rubber balls that my husband kicked at them.  Then they jumped on top of a hay bale(we already had it from Halloween) where I threw three balloons at them for them to knock down with their light saber. 

Of course it had to be windy that day so the balloons didn't work quite as well but it was still fun.  After the hay bale they had to keep the balloon in the air with their light saber while they walked around a cone once.  Due to the wind we changed this to keeping the balloon up 5 times in a row.  Then they jumped onto a disc swing and then battled Darth Maul (my son was more into the Clone Wars) Darth Maul was my 8 year old dressed up.  Make-up and all!!!  After they defeated Darth Maul they ran up onto our deck and grabbed Princess Padme (my daughter's giant Groovy Girls Doll) and took her to safety.  This all worked out great!  The boys were even good about putting "Padme" back onto the deck for the next person!  The boys each got to run the course at least two or three times.  I would say it would have been nice to have another adult there to help out.  But two people could do it fine.  During this whole Jedi training course session we blasted the Star Wars music!  The kids loved it!! 

Once they were done with that they came inside and while we waited for our Galactic pizza they did the activity sheets.  They really liked doing them!!!  It was a great filler!!  For lunch we had Galactic Pizza Woki Watermelon and Yoda Sodas.  I did add in some pretzels as the kids wanted a little something more. They loved it all!!  Then we sang to the birthday boy and had light saber cupcakes.  I made two of them one purple for Mace Windu (my son's favorite character) and one blue for Anakin.  I used chocolate icing for the last three cupcakes for the handle of the light saber and then put m&ms on it for the buttons. 

For decorations I had colorful printouts from various websites with neat characters and clone wars scenes taped up on windows.  My centerpiece for the table was a Darth Vader pinata and a Star Wars lego battleship my son put together.  We also got purple green blue and red balloons for each of the colors of the Jedi light sabers.  My son thought all of the colorful printed off pictures were really cool!!!  And he loved the Darth Vader head in the middle of the table.  I bought Clone Wars plates and a table cover.  We did get a Star Wars "Happy Birthday" banner too. 

After lunch we did a Galactice Adventure Treasure Hunt to find their goodie bags.  We had two teams The Mace Windu team and the Anakin Team.  I figured out who was going to be on each of these teams ahead of time.  One team headed upstairs while the other team went downstairs to start.  Since this was for 7 year olds I tried to incorporate Math clues and other things they were learning in school.  I put printouts of R2D2 Anakin Mace Windu Yoda and Obi Won Knobi on all the doors upstairs.  I think I had a picture of the bad guys on our bedroom door just for an extra as we did not use that room.  So one of the first clues said "go to the door with Yoda on it and open it and count the number of towels starting from the top that equals this equation and there you will find your clue"(then I gave them an addition equation to solve).  Then they pulled the towel out with their clue wrapped inside.  The clues were simply white pieces of paper folded and put into a little envelope.  I put a purple "M" for the Mace Windu team and a blue "A" for the Anakin team.  The next clue was "go to the door with R2D2 on it and find the Clone Wars book" they had to look through all of my daughter's books to find that particular book with the clue in it which took a little while.  Then they had to go under here lofted bed to "find the clock that read 9:00"  and behind that clock I had taped the clue.  So on the wall under my daughter's bed I made four clocks out of white circle paper and put different times on them.  Again I was trying to make it somewhat educational and trickier for the kids. 

I was thinking if I would have been more of an expert about the Clone Wars(and had more time) I could have come up with some trivia questions for finding their clues. You could make up multiple choice questions and have them pick the right answer to get their clue.  Each of the teams had two different sets of clues.  The Mace team only went in two rooms upstairs then went to the living room and then went downstairs for two clues.  Their clue in the living room was "go to the living room and find the musical instrument that reminds you of Darth Vader and look for your clue"  We have a black piano that the kids had to search for their clue.  I hid it in the piano bench.  It actually took them a little bit but they figured it out. 

Downstairs I came up with a subtraction equation for one of their clues and then for the other clue I had them "find the movie Scooby Doo"  I put the envelope in the inside of the movie case.  Then they went back to the living room to sit by the fireplace and waited for Team Anakin to come.  Once they were all there I read clue #8(I numbered each of the clues so I made up a total of 7 clues for each team)and it said "your next clue is behind Mace and Anakin"  I had taped a colored printout of Mace and Anakin to the fireplace doors.  The birthday boy figured it out and opened the doors to find the last clue sitting under a candle inside the fireplace. 

The last clue took them all back upstairs into a room where no one had been yet and there they found their goodie bags.  They loved this!!  They thought it was really cool at the end to get their bags!  I'm sure you could come up with some interested ways to set up your own "treasure hunt"  I thought it was fun to incorporate some things they were learning in school.  After the Galactic Treasure Hunt we went back outside and did the Darth Vader pinata.  They brought out their Clone Wars goodies bags to put their candy in. We had ONE light saber and each kid got to hit the pinata twice with it.  After trying with the light saber they each got to pull the ribbon and the pinata was broken!  Everyone loves a pinata full of candy especially a Darth Vader one!!  After the pinata we went back inside and opened the presents. 

The boy giving my son his gift first had to tell all of us who his favorite character was from the Star Wars movies and which movie he liked the best.  I thought this was great!!  It made each person at the party feel special and it was fun for them to share with everyone.  My son even got into it as he would say before he opened his present "ok Lucas now who is your favorite character and which movie did you like the best" We had maybe ten minutes left of the party after all the presents were opened so the kids went downstairs and watched a little bit of the Clone Wars movie.  A few kids went back outside to play.  I thought it was perfect because as parents came it wasn't so chaotic as I could call each of them up one by one.  And before they left I had purchased from Target gold medallions and had cut out small white paper circles and wrote on them "Jedi Carlson". So I placed the medallions around their necks and said "Congratulations Jedi Carlson you have completed your training and now you are a Jedi!"  I suppose after presents we could have had a more formal ceremony for each of them to receive their medallions but it worked out fine giving it to them in the end.  I thought the party was great and I thought being organized and planning(what seemed like alot) all worked out great for a two hour party.  My son said "it was awesome mom!!"  "