Survivor Party - Tiki Hut Mother/Son Photos

SURVIVOR PARTY   We recently hosted a "Survivor/<school name>/outback adventure for the mothers and son's at our chilren's Catholic School.  We had over 100 people present for this 4 hour event which included games, prizes, food, raffles, and a luau.    

When everyone arrived the boys were given a "Survivor buff" with the school's name, Survivor, and 2005 on it. The mothers received a lei with the matching color of their son.  The boys and mothers were divided into 7 teams with 7 colors representing each team.     We started off with professional photo's during arrival where the mother and son could get their picture taken under a 7 foot tiki hut with a grass roof. The tiki pilars were made out of cement tubings (the kind you use in the ground for decks) and wrapped in a brown tribal pattern plastic table cloth I found for $1.  I made the hut roof out of cardboard from the recycling center and bought the grass (rafia) for $1.95 a piece.  

After pictures, we began the "hut challenge".  We started out with a scavenger hunt to find 10 various items (wood, rope, tape, straw, plastic sheets, etc) around the school property that we hid.  Only one mother/son from a team could go at a time to search for an item.  The rest of the team had to stay back and devise a plan how to build the hut.  For instance, we had wood in a box with a sign that said "take 4 pieces".  A team could take only 4 pieces, but if you were the first person to the box, you may have gotten a longer or nicer piece of wood than the next team.  It paid to be quick.  You could also use any items in the environment (sticks, etc.).   When you found your items, or felt you had enough items, you could begin to build.  However, you could no longer look for more items once you started to build.  This game took approx. 45 min and was the best part of the whole day.  The judges came around and judged on use of items and how good your hut was on a point system.  Winner got 5 points, 2nd got 3, and all others got 1.  We used this point system for all games so no child would feel like they got "0".  

The next game was the long balloon challenge.  We purchased 7 kits of long balloons and blowers at a local party supply store for $0.99 each kit.  The teams were instucted to blow up and twist the balloons into a jungle animal.  The animal had to be as tall as the tallest member of your tribe.  The animals were over 5 feet tall and ranged from monkeys, to giraffes.  This game lasted 15-20 min and was scored on points.  

The third game was the balloon drop.  I had purchased 4-8x32 foot fishing nets for $7 a piece.  We sewed 2 nets together to make it one large net of 16x32.  Then we sewed the other 2 together to make it another large net of 16x32.  The next step was to take large table paper rolls (32 feet long) and punched holes in the paper and weaved string though it to tie it to the first net.  Then we did the same with the other net.  Then to connect the two pieces of 32 foot table paper together we punched holes again in the two sides of the table paper and weaved string through it to tie them together.  We left a long tail of string at the one end to pull which ripped the paper and made the "balloon drop". 

This might sound a bit confusing but it was actually quite easy.  We strung it between 2 cables in the ceiling of the gymnasium with paper clips and filled it with over 300 balloons.  The total size of the balloon drop was about 20 feetx 32 feet.   We had about 45 balloons of each of the 7 team colors to represent the team. (total of over 300 balloons).  The 70+ kids stood under the balloon drop and we let the 6th grade boys pull the rip cord.  Then the boys were instucted to go with their team and form a relay line.  The object of the game was to run, pop an opponents balloon (another color other than your own), then run back and tag the next person to pop one too.  This was a total blast!!!!  The balloon drop race even made the front page of the newspaper.  It was by far the kids favorite.  Then the last balloon remaining won and a second place was also given.  

The next game was the 3 legged-race relay.  Moms and son's were tied together, had to run across the gym and back, untie themselves, tie up the next member of their team and then they would have to race.  We also thought about the mom's getting blindfolded, but didn't do it.  

Last we had the trivia challenge so the boys could unwind before supper.  The boys were each given a cardboard bookcover with brown paper bag pages and tied with rafia.  The book contained the letters a,b,c, true and false.  The teams were asked 25 trivia questions about the jungle and had to hold up their book all at the same time with their answer.  The judges kept track of who got them right.  This was again scored on the point system.  

When the 5 games were all done the points were tallied and the team with the most points won reward which consisted of getting to be the first to pick out of the prize boxes which had over 70 various toys such as long rubber snakes, squirt guns, etc.  They also won "Food" which meant they were the first to go through the food line.  Then we went down the line of 2nd most points, 3rd, etc.    

The tables were all decorated with green table cloths and covered with blue fishnets that matched the balloon drop.  We also had mirror tiles with real goldfish in bowls that we raffled off later that night.  The mirror tiles were decorated with real starfish and seashells and a tiki candle.  Also on all of the tables was the "Survivor Pringles"!!!  Each chip had a Survivor trivia question.  What a hit they were!!!  We also made dirt cake and put it in tiny sand pails that said "Jesus loves me" with a shovel and worms.  We served banana's and had coconuts too.  

The ceilings were covered in 14 huge hanging metallic colored parrots (75% off at a local store), hanging pinapple decorations(also 75% off), and fish mobiles(1.95 each).  We had several tiki pole heads on the walls and the huge tribal faces were hand-made out of cardboard with rafia hair and sequins.  We also made a lighted twinkling waterfall hanging from a balcony out of 6 christmas netting lights (got after x-mas for $1 a piece) and "water gossamer" which I got for $18.    

The stage was decorated in luau décor and held our "dj machine" which was 2 cd players hooked up to a microphone.  A skeleton from the science room wore a outback hat, sunglasses, and a hula skirt and had a sign that said "I didn't survive".  We also had a large cardboard "Survivor/<school name>/2005" sign screened for free by the place we got our buffs and cd cases from.  

After dinner we had the luau which was an opportunity to dance with mom!  We started off with a dance challenge where everyone competed as an individual.  We had various music such as ballet, country line dancing, robot, breakdancing, the worm, etc.  We would play 30 seconds of each song and announce what they had to dance like.  Believe it or not, all of the boys participated!  They even danced to the ballet song and twirled around on their toes!  At the end of the dance challenge we handed out CD cases with the same logo as the buffs to all of the boys for their great participation.     

The whole party lasted between 3 1/2- 4 hours.  The whole school is still talking about the party and people are already asking what we are planning for next year!