Superhero Party 5yr - Yarn Web Blasting

For my son's 5th birthday, we chose to have a superhero party. Since he loves all superheros, and couldn't decide on just one, we allowed all superheros to attend.

The invitation said Calling All Superheroes! Someone has stolen (son's name)5th birthday cake and he needs your help to find it! Time, date, etc. followed.Wear your favorite superhero costume or come and create a new one! Some children came dressed, but most found it fun to create a new costume anyway. Once the kids arrived at the party, they were allowed to decorate their own masks (white paper masks found at Oriental Trading) with stickers (letters, superhero, stars, etc.), markers, etc. After their masks were complete, they received their cape (made from knit material that did not have to be hemmed with ribbon ties sewn on, I made them all one color, but in retrospect would have probably opted for some more variety).

Then they all received a "Hello my superhero name is..." sticker to wear. Just a hint, they enjoyed changing their names quite often so extras of these are good. You can also create Superhero names at humorscope.com - my husband and the other dads thoroughly enjoyed these. We then played two games that I found on this website. They are Kryptonite toss and Web blasting.

The web blasting (making a spider web by having kids in a circle wrapping a ball of yarn around each child's waist then throwing to each other) was a huge hit. We also had kind of a scavenger hunt to find out who stole the birthday cake. I had hidden clues all around the party area. For example the first clue was "Mr. Octopus has tentacles that can reach great heights, but if he stole the cake he would certainly keep it in his sight." The clue was in one of the balloons hanging from the ceiling.

Spiderman was coming to visit us, so I used all of Spiderman's nemeses for the clues. The kids really enjoyed this, with the last clue they had to figure out which superhero would find the cake for them after thinking about who all the nemeses mentioned were.

I made the clues really easy since they were ages 4-6 and not all of them were quite as into superheros as my son was so they all enjoyed it, but the clues could easily be made harder. Once they determined it was Spiderman that would find the cake, we used Silly string as if we were casting a web for him to swing in on and he entered with the cake. He played with the kids a good bit and then we moved on to cake and presents.

We had three cakes, again because we couldn't decide on one superhero. They were round cakes and for the fun of it, I made them different flavors. We had a batman cake, chocolate icing with Batman symbol on it saying Happy Birthday (name). We had a Spiderman cake with red icing and a black web decorated on it with a large 5 in the middle. He blew his candles out on this one since he was dressed as Spiderman. And, we had a Superman cake - red icing with Superman symbol in the middle, except that I used a "D" for my son's initial instead of the S.

We also had Penguin Goldfish and Catwoman Bugle Claws for snacks. We decorated with posters and signs with sayings from the old comic strips (Bam!, Crunch!, etc.) The kids enjoyed reading them and acting them out.

For favors, they got to keep their masks, capes, and the Kryptonite glowsticks used in the game. I think the kids had a good time, I know my son did, he had a blast, and I had a blast planning it!