Star Wars Party -5yr- Lights & Foil Stars

Star Wars Birthday--5 yr old  I got a lot of my ideas from this site. Thank you! Thank you! 

INVITATIONS--Read: Attention Jedi Knights! Young Jedi (child's name) has reached the age of five and can now complete his training and participate in the Jedi trials. He has requested your presence at the Jedi Training Center (address) to participate in these activities with him on (date) at (time). Please advise the Jedi Council at (phone) as to whether you accept this challenge. MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU! Then in small type at the bottom--Please note that due to new security protocols, no weapons will be allowed on transport vessels. Please forgive the inconvenience and rest assured that the Jedi Council has secured enough equipment for you to complete your training. I printed them out sideways on a half sheet of some nice resume paper that I had, then cut the edges haphazardly. I then held the edges to a candle to give it a burnt look. These fit nicely in invitation envelopes from the office supply store.

DECORATIONS--We strung white Christmas tree lights across our ceiling and then hung black trash bags over it. It looked like stars out in space. We then hung balls of aluminum foil (comets/meteors), foil stars and black and silver balloons (some decorated with more foil stars) from the ceiling and around the room. We also had black streamers. We used store-bought Star Wars plates and napkins.

CAKE--I found a cake pan that makes balls at Jo-Ann Fabrics. I used half of it to make a "half Death Star". I used white icing with a little black food coloring mixed in to make it gray all over and then black piping icing to make the circle part and lines. Then I used the other half of the cake mix to make cupcakes, which were iced in the gray also and then had star sprinkles on them. Then, I topped each with a ship (X-wing, tie fighter, milennium falcon, etc.) stuck to a toothpick (you need to print a reverse also and then just glue them together with the toothpick in between). When I placed the cupcakes around the half ball, it looked like ships flying around the Death Star.

THE PARTY--As each guest arrived, he or she was given a lightsaber (foam pool noodles cut in half and wrapped at one end with duct tape and decorated with some black electrician's tape to look like buttons) and a costume (about 3/4 of a yard of osnaburg per costume--found near the muslin at Jo-anns and really cheap--with a slit cut down the center for the head and the sides hemmed to prevent unraveling and tied at the waist with a strip of brown vinyl about 2 inches wide). Once they were in costume, the kids had their pictures taken.

When everyone was done with that, they were given their Jedi Abilities Checklist (printed out and mounted on construction paper) and it was explained that to complete their training, they must complete all the tasks listed--physical ability, mental ability, lightsaber skills, teamwork, use of the force, and other weapons skills. Each one was a game that we played. For the scavenger hunt (teamwork), they were divided into pairs and had to find some star wars toys and some foil balls (meteors) and glow-in-the-dark stars. These were listed (with pictures since they couldn't read yet) on a sheet of paper mounted on construction paper.

After that we played Pin the Lightsaber on Yoda--use of the force (my graphic designer husband deleted the lightsaber from a picture he found online of Yoda and printed out mini lightsabers and mounted them on cardboard and stuck magnets to the back. The picture was put on a metal background--you could use the fridge). Then we played a game where I had some rings hung from the ceiling at slightly different heights, but about kid-shoulder level. They then had to thread their lightsaber through all three rings to complete their lightsaber skills task.

Other Weapons skills was a bean bag toss (a large picture of Darth Vader mounted on foam board with some holes cut into it). Physical ability was an obstacle course where they had to step on "stones" (pieces of paper), but there weren't enough to get all the way across the room, so they had to keep handing the last one forward and putting it down, then moving forward one, then picking the last one up, etc. Then they had to go up the stairs backwards on their bottoms, then crawl through some hula hoops to find the "princess" (little sister's doll) and then go all the way back. The final task was mental ability, which was at the end, and they had to follow a long string that was strung and criss-crossed around a room (around drawer handles, over the bed, under a chair, etc.) to get to their goodie bag.

FAVORS--Inside the goodie bags were glow-in-the-dark stars, Star Wars pez dispensers, Star Wars stickers, pop rocks and glow-in-the-dark bracelets. Kids also got to keep their costumes and lightsabers and they got a Star Wars coloring book I made from printouts I found online and stapled together.

THANK YOUS--For the thank yous, my graphic designer husband cut and pasted the pictures we had taken into a background of the jedi council room, so it looked like a group shot. The note was written on the back. All in all, it was a great party and didn't really cost a lot to do. Thanks to all the others who have written ideas before me to inspire me! If you have any questions and want to contact me, e-mail me at marisasim@yahoo.com.