Superhero party

Welcome to the Superhero Training Camp Party for Ollie's 6th birthday!

It's over - hooray! Weeks of work but it was all totally worth it when the last person left and Ollie ran into the middle of the hall and yelled, arms up - 'that was the most amazing party ever!'

The concept

It was a superhero training camp. At the start the kids were given a training record, with a checklist of all the superhero skills we were going to work on (in the form of the games to come). Information on the games we did will follow in this blog.

Decorations

I wrote Ollie is 6 using comic book pages.

I added Happy birthday Ollie speech bubbles to some cheap and cheerful plastic bunting. I downloaded Comic Book Commando, Badaboom and Casper Comic free fonts from a free font website to use for all the stationery.

I printed off pictures of all the superheroes I could think of, added a speech bubble and decorated the hall with them. They also became part of the quiz as the last question was to name as many as possible.

I cut up and painted a cardboard box to make some buildings. I used a sponge and got it painted and decorated in minutes. I used these against the stage with an old duvet cover to make a little photobooth for flying photos.

The food

The party was 2.30-4.30pm so we kept the food minimal as it wasn't technically a meal time and we were very busy with the training! We had cake, superhero cake pops, rainbow fruit kebabs and crisps.

Rainbow fruit kebabs

The cake was a vanilla sponge. Each layer was coloured red, blue, black and yellow with white buttercream icing to sandwich them and fondant icing on the outside. Fondant icing stars on sticks and a 6 made from silver foil wrapped in fondant icing.

Superhero cake

Superhero cake after cutting

The costumes

My husband and I made capes out of an old blue sheet. I was Mrs Dynomite (as seen in the you tube invite) and he was Captain Ka-boom. We painted on face masks to get into character. My dad and his wife came to help, they had outfits too - Superman and Supermac(donald)

The games/superhero training skills

Identity

First off we had to get ourselves a superhero identities. I got the children to pull a name out of hats. The first part from one hat, the second from the other.

Here is a list of the words we used;

Invincible

Incredible

Green

Super

Daring

Silver

Courageous

Electro

Galaxy

Shadow

Captain

Awesome

Steel

Star

Thunder

 Samurai

Defender

Phantom

Surfer

Avenger

Falcon

Cobra

Blizzard

Hands

Blast

Wonder

Tornado

Ninja

Star

Flash

Ollie was Phantom Thunder, Max was The Invincible Flash!

They then wrote their name on the checklist, and thought of some appropriate super powers for their name. 

We then made capes (using old t-shirts that I had pre-cut into the right shape - see previous post on superhero cape making) and the first letter of each of their name parts (which I had also pre-cut from felt/t-shirt material). They stuck them on using pritt stick, which held well enough.

Flying

The flying exercise was simply musical corners. I put a poster up in each corner of the hall, Batcave, Metropolis, Planet Krypton, Gotham City. They flew around in their capes and when the music stopped had to choose a corner to fly to. I called out a corner (without peeking) and those people were out.

Transforming

This was about speed of changing! It was also a team game so we could discuss how being a superhero sometimes means working together.

Two rows. One small suit jacket (purchased from charity shop for £1), one pair of glasses and one hat per team. They had to put all those item on and then take them off and pass to the next person in the row. The first row where they had all changed, won.

Knowledge

A quiz that I wrote.

X-ray vision

I painted some boxes to look like bricks. I put things inside and told them they had to tell me what was behind the brick wall. They could feel or smell. 

5 boxes;

Marmite, onions, peeled cherry tomatoes, lego and crushed up crisps.

Defeating villains

This game was like musical chairs. I printed off enough villains for 1 per child. I laminated these (not really necessary but I got a laminater for Xmas and wanted to use it!) and lay them on the floor in a circle. They walked around in a circle until the music stopped when they had to find one to stand on and I then said 'Batman defeats.........The Joker' etc whoever was standing on it was out until only one was left.

Kryptonite Avoidance

This game was basically pass the parcel without all the wrapping up layers. I made some kryptonite by scrumpling some aluminium foil and covering it with green tissue paper mache. If they were left holding the kryptonite when the music stopped they were out.

Power up

This was basically having a break to eat some crisps, cake pops and fruit kebabs!

Strength

This was bashing a homemade pinata of a villain. I don't think I have a photo as he was quite awful! But luckily he didn't have to look good to be a villain.

The end

We wrapped up at the end by singing happy birthday and cutting the cake. While the cake was being cut and put into party bags we presented the certificate saying they had passed their training and were now entry level superheroes!

Everyone seemed to have a good time and I am very grateful to the mum's who stayed and helped out with tea making and clearing and generally managing them when they all got a little hyper!

Thank you too to my Dad, his wife and my husband without whom the day would not have gone as well.