Survivor Pearl Island -9yr- Water Brigade

I had a Survivor Pearl Islands party with a pirate theme for my son's 9th birthday. For the invitations I printed a map of Pearl Islands that I found on a Survivor website. It had the actual locations of where the camps, tribal council were on the show. On the back, I printed the Survivor Pearl Islands logo and the party information. I then ripped around the edges to look  like a map. I put them in an envelope and wrapped orange raffia around the envelope several times and attached a survivor logo to the raffia.

Decorations: I used black and red tablecovers, plates, napkins. We had to move the party to the garage because of weather, so we didn't do lots of decorations. I made a large posterboard with the Survivor logo on the top and all the challenges we were doing and put a box for the red team and a box for the black team. Each time a team won a challenge, they put a pirate flag pick through their box to keep track of who won the challenge. The kids really enjoyed keeping score! I made an immunity neck and hang next to the score board for decoration. It was a bead necklace that I added orange raffia between each bead and clipart of a pirate ship, skull and some other pirate related items. When the kids arrived, I had them choose a checker (either red or black) from a cup. Then they got a buff" - I just cut strips of plastic tablecover and had them tie them around their hand waist chest or leg wherever they wanted. I had lots of challenges planned and we didn't get to all of them.

The first challenge was WATER BRIGADE: I set this up along the sidewalk and had the two teams go different directions. On one end was a bucket full of water and on the other end an empty cup. The goal is to transfer the water from one bucket to the cup using small cups (the ones that come on the medicine bottles). They had to pass the cup to next player and so on until the cup was filled. The winning team put a pirate flag pick through the scoreboard.

MATCHMAKERS: I got 24 kids treasure boxes from Long John Silvers kids meals and put pairs of pirate items in each box and scatter them around the garage. I had two each: sword captain hook map coin money telescope bandana compass dagger treasure chest and eyepatch. They had to find the matches. The kids thought it was going to be easy but it was harder than it looked.

GROSS FOOD CHALLENGE: raisins-ants; raisinettes-rat droppings; gummy worms; gummy bugs; chicks-marshmallow; jelly beans-snake eggs. Put items in paper plates and then covered up the plates with another plate on top and face off two at a time. I used a twister board and color coated the plates to match the board. I put a blue F for blue foot blue H for blue hand etc. The kids faced off two at a time and had to chew swallow and then stick out their tongue to show they ate it all. They thought this was so funny and wanted to keep going it over I think we ended up doing two rounds.

REMEMBRANCE: I made a board with pirate items attached and taped it on the floor of our swingset fort. The kids had to memorize the board of items race down the slide untie bag of pictures and complete board.

WICKER FLICKER: Using pieces of fabric to toss balls the tribe that catches the most balls in a cup wins.

TRIBAL TILES: The object is to place tiles on a grid without having the same picuture in the same row or column (like sudoku). I did 5x5 grids.

SQUARED OFF: Take turns stepping from one plate to another plate (sideways or back and forward). I put an X on the back of the plate and they just had to flip them when they moved to the next spot. You can only move to an adjacent plate without an X on it. Face off two at a time one point per round team with the most wins game. I also planned a few more but didn't have time for them.

ISLAND HOPPING: I used a backdrop of water and taped islands and sharks to it. The goal was to slide a coin onto land. You get one point for each time you hit land. If you hit a shark you get a point taken away. Each player gets 6 chances.

PUZZLER: Hide treasure chests with printable pirate mazes decoder messages word searches etc. The teams have a key and they have to find the chest that matches their color key and complete puzzle. First team to have every player complete a puzzle wins.

TRIVA: Read facts about Pearl Islands and answer questions. Two per team go at a time find a station read question and open treasure chest (true or false) get flag. If incorrect there will be no flag and the next two players go. First team with all flags wins. Tribal Council to vote for ultimate Survivor. Vote for who you thought played the best you can't vote for yourself. I also planned to have them build shelters using small play tents but it was too windy and everything was blowing away.

CAKE: I made a survivor island cake from two rectangle cakes and a round cake. I put the two rectangle cakes together to make a big rectangle. I frosted one corner cream and sprinkled brown sugar on it to look like sand (this was exhile island). I frosted blue for the ocean and then the other half cream for land. I did the brown sugar along the water for a beach. Then I cut the round cake into 3 pieces and stacked them and frosted them with chocolate frosting for a mountain/cave. I used pretzels and green icing for palm tree and put a few whopper underneath them for coconuts. I used pretzels for fire wood and then frosted some broken pretzels orange red and yellow for flames and made a campfire. I also taped some coins and maps and eyepatches around the foil that the cake was on. It turned out really cute and my son didn't believe me when I told him I made it he thought I bought it.

Goodie bags: brown paper bags with the Survivor logo and I used orange raffia to tie them closed and a cirle tag with pirate skull clipart and Thanks wrote across it. My son said it was the best party he's had so far. "