Archive for the ‘Party Ideas’ Category
Thursday, July 5th, 2007Hi Nikki,
I am just getting started on planning the pirate themed treasure hunt for my sons 6th birthday party. I appreciate all your email and hope it goes smoothly. We will be doing it in a park with different color pirate teams depending on how many kids are coming. I am changing the tasks a little bit. Also instead of burying the treasure we are going to have a hanging treasure box pi?ata in a secret location at the end of the hunt. I am in the process of collecting all the materials and need to decide where the treasure will be hiding so I can work on drawing a treasure map. I cant decide if the 6 clues are going to be actual pieces of a puzzle showing the place the map is hiding or 6 cards with riddles so they can solve them and put all clues together to find location of map. This is a lot of fun for me too! This is the activity for the party so I hope it will keep them busy for an entire hour. I will keep you posted!
Nomi Gilbert, New Jersey USA
Wednesday, July 4th, 2007Nikki,
Thank you for checking on me. I was really reluctant to agree to the treasure hunt, but after getting your manual, I am getting excited.
I have an idea where I am going to bury the treasure and have decided to prepare 6 individual treasure chests and these will be buried in a bigger treasure chest.
I purchased a disposable ice chest and will spray paint it black, brown or gold, not sure yet on the color. I bought the smallest one available because it had a rope attached to it and I wanted to make sure it is not too heavy for the kids to pull it up.
I will fill each treasure chest up stuff for the winners and place them all staked on top of each other in the ice chest. I will then place filled individual goodie bags on top of the treasure chests that the winners get to ’share’ their spoils with others. The individual bags will contain coins, gems, etc and a thanks for participating note.
I have read your instructions several times and think I have a good handle on it and feel pretty good about what I need to do to make it successful.
I haven’t told my children that I’ve planned this for their party because if I tell them anything in advance, they will ask day and night millions of questions and will not allow me a moments peace.
Angel Epps, California USA
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007Hello Nikki,
It’s taken awhile for me to respond, but my daughter reminded me of it today so I thought I should reply before I forgot again.
I had my treasure hunt for my 10 year old daughter?s birthday. It was a bit unorganized but hey I had to work the morning of the party. We had 17 kids over. My husband was uneasy about how we were going to keep them all entertained and having fun for 5 hours.
It was great! I scattered the stations all over the place. Finding the treasure map was the best. My husband hid it in a bird house. It took them like 10 minutes to clue in. They ran around it who knows how many times. The next best thing was the actual location of the treasure chest. Instead of burying it we strung it up in a tree. Of course, no one thought of looking up. It was right in the middle of all the action throughout the whole hunt. We were laughing. It was a blast.
This party took place middle of July. On this past Monday, one of kids mentions to my daughter that that was the most fun at a party. Now the other kids want treasure hunts too. Next year it will be even better since we had the trial run and it went over amazing. Thanks for your help.
Doris
Doris Traeger, Ontario Canada
Sunday, July 1st, 2007Well Nikki,
I had 6 ’stations’ and adults at each one, and we had a challenge at each station. (eat a donut that was hanging from a limb by a string, blindfolded and after being spun around, answer at least 80% of some tricky questions, get the cherry out of a cream pie without using your hands, 2 stations were Halloween scary where you just had to be brave enough to get your color-coded flag with the next clue attached and get out of there! And the final station where after solving the clue you knew that the next clue was under a chair, only to find out there were A LOT more then just a few chairs to look under!
The party was a great success (or so the kids & their parents say). Some of the kids are already asking for it to be an annual event. If I do the hunt again I will give myself even more planning time and make the teams smaller (I had 8 in each). I also will add some kind of ‘playing field’ map to START with, as some of the teams made it too hard by reading more into the clues and looking too far and wide. The Instant hunt was actually the most helpful, with the planning guide filling in some details. I will say your customer service dept has the world’s fastest response time.
Thanks,
Sandra Wellman, North Carolina USA
Friday, June 29th, 2007Nikki,
The Treasure Hunt was a smashing success -thanks. We took most of your ideas and changed them a little to go with our group (we still did the 6 stations but made one station food related [they had to make a pirate delicacy from foods that were on the table without labels - crushed up Oreos looked like dirt, etc.]). They also had to name the delicacy, write out the recipe and 1/2 of the team had to take a bite in front of the First Mate!
We also decided to have 6 different treasures (one for each team so the game didn’t end when the first team found their treasure). The 6 clues lead all the teams to the same location for the treasure Map but each Treasure Map had a different team’s name. So, they had to locate their team’s map which lead them to their own treasure. The teams didn’t know this so they were quite surprised when they found loot at different locations.
Thanks so much!!
Judith Block, California USA
Friday, June 29th, 2007Hi Nikki -
I have found the e-book extremely helpful in planning my daughter?s 13th birthday party.
Our party is taking place in Phoenix, Arizona, USA
The party is the weekend of October 7, 2006
The special occasion is my daughter’s 13th birthday
The age range is 12-14
We are doing a Mall Hunt as a local mall most of the girls are not familiar with to add extra challenge. I have broken it into three different types - things to take photos of, questions to find answers to and items to collect.
We are checking in to a hotel with a water park, going for dinner to Sweet Tomatoes and then to the mall for the HUNT. After our return to the hotel - I have some games planned for the girls to play - then they can do what they do at this age - talk all night. In the morning, we go to the water park following breakfast and then home around 2:00 PM. Everyone gets a party bag with body glitter, lotion, nail file, nail polish, body powder, etc…….
My daughter has chosen to not be a part of the planning so it will be a surprise to her as well as the girls invited. We are ALL excited about it.
I’m sure I will be referring back to the information in your book frequently over the next few years……
Thanks
Rebecca Ihori, Arizona USA
Thursday, June 28th, 2007Nikki,
It is Sunday and we are recuperating from the Halloween Party we hosted for our 10 year old son. The boys loved the treasure hunt! Thank you.
I had the boys eat and drink gross looking candy ( a bug, blood and vomit). I also bought 2 paint guns (they are manual and without CO2 or battery) and had them shoot at a skeleton that I painted on a piece of plywood (very easy). I am considering an adult party next year. Any advice? Thank you,
Patty Lamp, Illinois USA
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007Hello,
I did receive the party planner as well as the Halloween pack and the pirate pack as I wasn’t sure which one I would do. After a vote from all the adult chaperone’s, the pirate theme won out. We are planning the party in MI on Oct 28th. It will be a Halloween party for my son and his friends from middle school. The age range will be from about 8 (siblings of his friends) to about 15. We usually get about 25-30 kids each year so they expect us to top last years spectacle. Its gets harder each year as they get older and don’t fall for ‘kiddie games’ anymore.
I have read the books thru and we are keeping few of the games suggested (scavenger hunt, flag creation and walking the plank). We are just adding ‘features’ to each of those three to slow them down a bit. Then I created 3 other games to replace the ones in the book that I know they wont like or will do so fast that they will be doubling up at the ports. So in an effort to not overwhelm my lovely adult volunteers, I need to keep them at each station for about the same time. The three new games should keep all ports on the same time scale (at least I hope it will).
Thanks for the great ideas, they got me going in the right direction. Overall I hope it goes over well.
Lisa Marten, Michigan USA
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007Nikki,
Sorry it’s taken a while to get back to you. Yes, we had our scavenger hunt. It was for my daughters’ Sweet 16 and she had invited 10 friends.
We had been looking around and trying to think of something fun to do. I came across several websites about scavenger hunts and she agreed to letting me plan one. The hard part was I had less than one week by the time I got your book online. But I had some basic ideas and used your book to help out.
It was very fun. I took them to the mall with a list of 16 stores they had to find via an envelope with a ‘pictionary’ type clue on it. They were divided up into 3 groups, so I had 16 envelopes of clues, all in the same order for each group. I started each group out at a different spot on the list, so they wouldn’t run into each other. At each store, they had to do one of several options: take a picture of themselves doing something, (at the GAP, holding a pair of underwear that my daughter would wear); find/purchase an item (at a bead store, they had to buy a small string of beads for under $3.00 in her favorite color) or contact someone at the store for their task, etc (at the GAP, the manager had them walk out of the store quacking like ducks! She really got into it!!)
I provided them with a list of rules (which we went over beforehand), some money to use for specific tasks, pens and paper to list the stores on and a bag with the clues in it. They were to call me if they got stuck on a clue.
Everything had points, so the first team done, didn’t necessarily win.
My daughter was very afraid I would make them do something ‘weird’ and was fairly anxious about the whole thing. The GAP store manager was a riot and really got into the whole thing. She was so fun and the girls actually really had a lot of fun! It was a cold weekend here, so the mall was VERY crowded on a late Saturday afternoon. I had contacted the stores where they were to take pictures and got oks from all of them. That’s how the Gap manager got involved. She couldn’t wait to help out.
The crowds at the mall were a problem, in that at one store one group had to wait to pay for their item for 15 minutes, which eventually left them without enough time to get to the last clue. But all in all , it was a huge success! The girls all had a great time and were very excited to participate. Afterwards, we took them all out to a local restaurant to eat and we gave out prizes there. We had used digital cameras, so while they were getting dressed to go to eat, we loaded them to my husbands’ laptop and
were able to show them all at dinner. That was really fun and they were all laughing.
So, that’s how it all went. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun for the girls. Plus, no one else had done anything like that before, so that was very cool. Score one for MOM! ha
Your book was a big help. I hope to use it again sometime. I’m thinking how fun an adult one would be. Hmmm…..
Sandy Kollmorgen, Virginia USA
Monday, June 25th, 2007Our party will be a week long event held in Italy (Tuscany) during the last week of July. We have hired two large villas each for a week in close proximity to each other for our daughters wedding. As most of the guests will be travelling from Australia (bride) and the U.S. (grooms family) and we haven’t met I was looking for a lighthearted theme.
My idea was that everyone could be given a list of items and/or questions that had to been collected over the week as guests toured the area (a red wine label from a famous local winery, a ticket to a Florence museum etc) along with some quiz questions/puzzles etc.
Regards
Jill Hill, Hyogo Japan
Monday, June 25th, 2007Hi Nikki,
I just wanted to let you know that we had our Pirate Party this past Saturday and had 160 in attendance. We followed your suggestion of only having the 6 stations, making sure to have enough room and supplies for two teams to be at any given port at one time. Because of the size of our party and the broad range of age groups from 4 to 15, we slightly modified the activities at some of the ports, and the party went splendidly following your schedule. Each color team had an arm or headband in their team color and the team carried a team flag which we affixed to 5-ft sticks (so if anyone had to take a break to go to the bathroom they could easily find their team flag when they came back into the room.)
As each guest arrived we gave them their arm/headband based on the child’s age, then sent them to the tattoo parlor for a fake tattoo. We had a professional photographer ready to take individual photos, then fed them a nautical lunch of fish sticks, macaroni and cheese, and tator tots, following by dirt cups (choc pudding with crushed Oreo on top and a gummy worm stuck in) and also pirate cookies. Once everyone finished eating, our team leaders held their flags high in the air so all of the participants could find their team and then the fun began.
We gave out a puzzle piece at each port once the team completed each activity, and once they finished all, they put their puzzle together. The little ones’ puzzle gave a simple clue to directly go to find their treasure. The older kids puzzle was the first clue in a series of clues that led to their treasure. We had a different treasure location for each color team.
The feedback on Monday at work was unbelievable. Everyone had a fantastic time. The parents loved it too and still say ‘ARRRRR’ to me every time they pass me at work. Parents said the kids were thrilled with their treasure bags and most did not want to take off their pirate outfits when they got home. Our next party will be a Halloween party in October. I don’t know how we are going to top this one!
Our photographer took over 300 pictures at the party and we get them back tomorrow. I can’t wait!
A million thanks!
Judy McEvoy, New York USA
Monday, June 25th, 2007I used your treasure hunt game for my son’s 12th birthday party. We were doing a haunted Luau theme and I used the Hawaiian Islands as the places that they had to visit. It was great. The program to customize the hunt worked great and was very easy to use. I had about 15 kids that were doing the hunt. They had a really good time. I was having a little trouble trying to come up with a treasure but a friend suggested lottery tickets.
The kids went nuts over them. I had three sets of three lottery tickets tied together for the team that figured out the location and dug it up. But I also had single tickets in the box so that everyone got one. It was a great party game for that age group. I was really pleased with the product.
I am planning on using the Halloween games bonus that I got for my son’s Halloween party at school. Thanks.
Kathy Stover, West Virginia USA
Monday, June 4th, 2007Hello Nikki,
We are planning a party in Brussels, Belgium, which is where we are based although we are British and all the children are English speaking.
It is for my daughter’s 7th birthday party on 3rd July and we are expecting 14 (maybe 15) children between the ages of 6 1/2 and 7 1/2.
I have read through the book a couple of times and I think it looks good. Some of the games look at bit tricky for them, perhaps the message written backwards is too hard, but I guess we could substitute it for another. The only real concern I have is that the children’s reading skills may not be up to it (they start reading late here - they’ve only been at it since September), so I thought I could incorporate lots of symbols to help them.
Also, does it matter if the teams are not of equal sizes? I was thinking of 2 teams of 4 members and 2 of 3 members. Will it still work? I’d be grateful to hear any comments you have.
Best regards,
Philippa Stewart, Belgium
Monday, May 28th, 2007Thank you for this excellent product. We had the party on Saturday and it was fantastic. I live in France so had to translate it and we did a Harry Potter theme. For the code, we sent the kids to a computer where they typed in the code and then a PowerPoint presentation sent them to the kitchen for the treasure. It was really brilliant fun and I know we’ll be doing it all again soon! Thanks again,
Alex Laurie, Eure et Loir Francernrn
Monday, May 28th, 2007We will be holding the treasure hunt July 8th and then 9th for Camp TBI which is a camp for children and young adults with brain injuries.
I am doing a treasure hunt first with the counselors during training so that they can get oriented to the different places at camp. When they find a clue they will be given a little token that they have to bring back to the main office. When they have all of the clues they will be given a card from their main counselor that explains what each of the tokens are, for example, they will get a ’smartie’ candy to let them know how smart they are. They will be given an eraser so that they know that everyone makes mistakes and it’s okay. Anyway the theme of all the clues will be a ‘counselor survivor kit’. The next day, the campers will do something very similar and the counselors will be giving the campers the survivor kits.
It will be held in GA, USA. I will have 70 counselors and 42 campers. Age range of campers is 8-24 counselors 16-70.
I only glanced at the book and need to start working on it soon. I was excited to figure out how to incorporate it into our camp. Our theme this year for camp is Wild and Wacky sports so I will be changing the stations or ports to different places that have to do with sports, for example, one of the stations will be ‘Green Ball Court’ meaning that they have to first figure out that they have to go to the tennis courts. So they have two clues to figure out, one is where the station is, and then what the puzzle will be
Judie Thompson, Georgia USA
Thursday, May 24th, 2007Dear Nikki:
Our treasure hunt is in Sapporo, Japan, it’s a mini summer ‘festival’ for my students, aged 5 - 12
As for the challenges: at one station, the students have to ask & answer 30 English questions in their group; at station 2, the students have to ‘fish’ for English words (reading each word before putting it into their bucket); at station 3, the students will have to look at picture cards and say the words before getting their piece of the puzzle; and at station 4, I will say a word then the students will have to go through some obstacle course in order to get the item; at station 5, the students will have to answer ‘What Am I’ quizzes in order to get a puzzle piece; and I’m stumped for a station
6 idea (possibly have each group dress up in crazy costumes–which I must supply–and take a group photo)……
Sincerely,
Cheri Hayashi, Japan
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007Nikki
I have read thru the instructions. I am planning to use the treasure hunt for our 31st family reunion in Pennsylvania at my nephew’s 200 acre farm. The theme for this year is the Pirates Treasure Map. There will be approximately 100 people of all ages. 4 generations. This is a 3 day event with a Friday morning golf tournament for the guys and then fireworks around a big bonfire and tent with snacks on Friday night. Saturday is a big feast with a roasted pig and all the trimmings starting at noon. After the feast we have picture taking and then start the treasure hunt. At nite we will have Karaoke . Sunday am we finish up the snacks.
We are following the guidelines pretty much as you have described in your book. We will bury and old army ammunition box and have a bottle of rum with a family label on it as one of the treasures. Won’t draw the map until I get to Pennsylvania.
It’s going to be awesome!
Mike Brenchak, North Carolina USA
Monday, May 21st, 2007Hi Nikki,
You have the same name as my daughter, I think it’s written somewhere in the cosmic rule book that all Nikki’s are fun loving extroverts!
Regarding my Treasure Hunt Party, it’s my wedding. It will be at Kensington Metro Park in Michigan, USA, on September 9th of this year (You are more than welcome to attend!!!!).
We started out with a Pirate theme but we then amended it to a Treasure theme. The guests will be the Pirates and they will be looking for the treasure in various times and countries, thus the ‘Stations’. We will have an Aladdin Station - with a Genie, a Pyramid Station - with King Tut, a Knights of the Round Table Station - with Guineviere, a Myan/Aztec Station, a Gold Rush Station, a LOST/Survivor Station (?), and then I think we are going to have to make up some more and have at least 9 stations and 9 teams because the wedding list is getting to be a little longer that I had first anticipated. !!!!
I think I’m going to have to put an 18 and over age limit to the actual Treasure Hunt because I want the Grand Prize to be a ‘Romantic Night’ with a reservation at our local Marriott Hotel, a bottle of wine or champagne, glasses, candles, bubble bath, baby-sitting coupon if needed, and maybe even an inappropriate toy or two!
I only have a short time to pull this whole thing together so your planner is a life-saver! I am re-marrying my ex-husband (father to my children) so the entire wedding theme is of finding something valuable that we lost (on an extremely limited budget) and bring family together.
I also need to come up with some games and activities to keep the younger contingent happy and entertained. One of the things I’m planning is to have them have a contest on building Pirate Ships out of refrigerator boxes, the best ship wins a prize, but then I’m going to have a bunch of black water balloons ready for them (as cannon balls) to have a Pirate Ship War!! The boat that lasts the longest (they are cardboard after all) will win the prize! The only problem with that one is that I think there will be an awful lot of adults that will want to get in on that fun themselves! On that note, I’m thinking of having the adults build pirate ships out of boxes and various items provided as one of their tasks in the treasure hunt. I just have to work out the details on how this is all going to come together.
Like I said, if you have any other ideas you would be willing to share with me on this, I would be forever grateful! I want this to be THE party of the year!! Thank you again!
Sincerely,
Lori Madison, Michigan USA
Sunday, May 20th, 2007Yes Nikki,
Our party, better known as our annual cub scout fall campout will be held at Saddlers Creek State Park, located in Anderson, SC……..
The campout kicks off on Oct. 13th thru the 15th. That being a Friday the 13th, a Halloween theme just seem to fit. Maybe call it ‘Spooks on the Run’ or something to that effect.
These are our young scouts, range in age 6 to 10, elementary school children. But it a family campout, so everyone is involved. The weather is usually quite nice that time of the year and we could easily have close to 400 attendees. So now is the time to get it all together as we will began promoting this event next month.
I have downloaded the Halloween planner, but have not printed it out. Looked at it briefly just to see what was in there. Looking good. Biggest thing was doing the treasure hunt this past spring and getting a feel of things. Should be ready in October.
Ron Cromer, South Carolina USA
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007Hi Nikki — I’m finally getting around to answering your emails! We finally completed our Treasure Hunt last week! We had so much fun — thank you for the great kick-start!!!
I ordered your Treasure Hunt software package way back in February.
Your software was just what I needed to get started, get me thinking about what I wanted to do — and it was GREAT fun! Everyone, from kids to adults, had a great time! For me, it was like Christmas, having chosen wonderful presents for all — and watching everyone Ooooh and Aaaah. My participants had a ball! Of course, now that everyone had so much fun, next year I have to come up with a game for EVERYONE — the grownups want to play, too!!!
Ah, the challenge!
Here’s what I did with your ideas:
I used your ideas for the 6 teams and 6 ports — to avoid them running into each other. However, since I knew I’d be running the treasure hunt during out group camping trip (4 families, 26 people), I had to wait until we got to this year’s campground to set it up. Didn’t know where I’d bury the treasure or what the site was like until I got there!
I had six adults manning the six ‘ports’ of call… and four teams. I paired the two teenagers with younger same-sex kids (girls and boys ages 7 - 10)plus a teen = (2 teams). A third team was the moms and ‘little ones’ under age 2, and the fourth team was the dads and little guys (two boys age 4).
We had the ‘group campsite’ for 40+ people, so we had our six stations spread out throughout the campsite, in the woods, and on the trail leading to our campsite.
At each location, each young pirate could earn a doubloon by completing the task. After each trial, they had to bring their doubloons to the Master of Arms to buy a piece of the puzzle for their team. After collecting all six pieces of the puzzle — they then had to use the puzzle to find the treasure map. Once they found the treasure map, they had to use the map to search for the buried treasure.
I made several copies of the treasure map, so as each team completed their puzzle, they could find the parchment map and begin the search for the treasure. You should have seen them combing through the woods! (I made parchment maps ahead of time from wrinkled, coffee stained paper — then used burgundy marker to draw on the map once we were in the campsite and I knew where the treasure was — I had one of my sons pace out the path to the
treasure.)
I worked it out so that each group could search for the treasure, but the team that found it had first pick of the treasure. The ‘treasure’ was a box of gifts from the dollar store. After the first team picked over the treasure, the rest of the teams chose their treasure, in youngest to oldest order.
This is what we did:
Pirate Beach — each young pirate had to decorate a pirate head-scarf to wear and create a team Pirate flag to carry on their journey.
Doubloon Inn — Learn to tie a pirate’s ship knot — all pirates need to know how to tie ship’s knots. We had the younger children learn to tie a square knot, and the older children learned to tie a bowline. Each child received an 8 ft. length of rope to learn their knots, and wear as a pirate belt. Their ropes went with them everywhere!!!
Gold Digger’s Island — The ‘logic’ island. (The captain needs a pirate crew that can think!) Sudoku puzzle for the older kids (4 and 6 square for kids, 9 square for adults, 25 piece jigsaw puzzle for non-number kids.) This was the log-jam station. Too hard for most — I’ll change it next time I do this.
Five Mile Lookout — I had 4 boxes sealed with one of the puzzle-pieces inside. Each box was tied up in 100′ of rope knots… they had to really work to untie the knots to get into each box! My husband and son spent an evening tying up these boxes!
Smuggler’s Cove — this is where they had to learn to walk the pirate ship’s rope rigging for the sails. Rope stretched out on the ground, the young pirate’s must walk the rigging looking through the wrong end of binoculars.
A great favorite!
Hideaway Harbor — Set up two rope swings (age appropriate). The young pirates in training needed to learn how to run and jump with a rope swing and land on the King’s treasure ship (at target on the ground) — ready to do battle for treasure! (Also a great favorite.)
I used the gold foil wrapped chocolates for doubloons, and although I had expected (and built) the game for three teams, I ended up with four teams.
This meant that the teams had to negotiate (with doubloons) near the end of the game to form a melded team with enough pieces of the puzzle to find the treasure map.
We had great fun!
Eileen Blackwood, Minnesota USA
Tuesday, May 15th, 2007Hi Nikki,
I work for the Department of Human Services Child Welfare for the State of Oregon. The party is taking place here in Portland, Oregon at the Zoo. The date of this event is Tuesday, August 8, starting at 8:30 am. and running until 4:00 pm. Because the State of Oregon does not pay it’s employees to take ‘Party’ days off our event is called the Support Staff Off Site Work Shop Day and the Treasure Hunt is one fun activity we are doing to end the session. The age range of everyone participating is from 26-60. The theme is ‘Safari Hunt’ since it is going to be held in the Zoo. A co-worker and myself went to the Zoo last night and set everything up with the help of their administrative staff. Also, since the state will not allow us to have just and offsite fun day our guest speaker is speaking on communication so each person had to provide me with their favorite animal and they are divided up according to animals. Each person also has to figure out just how there animal communicates so we are using your game and just critiqued it a little. We are all really excited about this event as some of the adults thought this was just a kids game until I explained how the operation was going to work.
I will tell you more about it after the event.
Thank you so much,
Melody Higgins, Oregon USA
Sunday, May 6th, 2007The treasure hunt party was great; my 16 year old son said it was an awesome party. All the kids came dressed in costume as well as the adults! The hunt took about 1.5 hours to complete. The clues lead to a compass and spade, the compass lead to a treasure map, and the map then lead to the treasure that was buried. When they dug up the chest it was wrapped in chains and locked, and a clue giving them a hint as to where they could find the key, which was hidden in another chest. Being a pirate party, there were several chests for them to look through, but it was in the cake which was shaped like a chest.
We served jerk chicken and shrimp before the hunt, they did the hunt, then ate cake, opened the chest, then played capture the flag in the dark (they had on glow stick necklaces). Everyone had a grand time!! Thanks for your ideas.
Teresa Arthur, Vancouver USA
Saturday, May 5th, 2007Hi Nikki, my party was in Oakville, Ontario. I had it on April 9th and it was for my daughter’s 8th birthday. The age range is 6-8 years old. I had some ideas about the party prior to getting your book, but your treasure hunt book was great to help bring all my ideas together. I modeled the game after yours but I changed a few things to be applicable for us. I didn’t have a lot of time to put it together, but it only took a few hours to gather the necessary items and make the game. I loved making up the clues and the treasure map. We authenticated the map by burning it and staining it with tea, and it was very realistic.
The morning of the party I had everything ready to go early and I felt completely relaxed, which is not always the case prior to a party. The party was a resounding success. The kids absolutely loved the game. They had so much fun, and worked really well in teams. I buried the treasure in our front yard, so that was definitely the highlight for the group. They were chanting ‘dig, dig, dig’ to the team who was digging to get the treasure up. Once it was found, they screamed with joy and excitement at what was in the tin.
Everyone had fun. No one was frustrated or felt they couldn’t do the game.
So thank you for all your assistance. I will definitely do another treasure hunt again. In fact my 6 year old asked if she could have the same party next year. It was so much fun for the kids but also for the my husband and myself.
We couldn’t wait for the kids to get here so we could play the game.
Thanks again!
Susan Thomson, Ontario Canada
Friday, May 4th, 2007Hi Nikki,
We had a great party. The games we played at the party was like Amazing Race. They had to play a game to get a clue. (They collect all seven clues and put it together to find the treasure). I made passport for everyone. We traveled around the world to all seven continents. They had different ways to travel around the world. (bike, Wheel bower, skates, etc.) When they collected all the clues they had to find the treasure box that was buried.
We had two teams. I know the kids loved it we had it before our spring break, and yesterday was the first day back and they were still talking about it.
Thanks for the help and ideas.
Shawna Bates, Georgia USA
Thursday, May 3rd, 2007All went VERY well.. I had about 30 children to do the treasure hunt… They really liked it… It took a lot of thought and planning this first run but it will be a sinch the next time…. I made copies of the pages, cut, color coded, glued and laminated the different stations. I used fold down baskets for the stations… I just taped name to it… Sooo I can pack it all up and use it next year… THANKS it was lots of fun.
Nadine Draper, Ohio USA