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Fear Factor Party -11yr- Obstacle Course

January 2005

Paula in Ajax, Ontario Canada

Special Mention

Okay here goes.  We had a fear factor party for my daughter's 11th birthday.  I used some of the ideas from this site and combined them with a few of my own.  Unfortunately, I could not find any FF party supplies- not even online. So- here starts the challenge.  The party was held at a facility across the street from our home- just so we could have the space we needed. It would work fine at home also- but you need some space. 

The invitations:  I saved the FF logo from their website and pasted it into Word and made an 8 1/2 X 11 sheet invite.  It said: "if fear is not a factor for you then please join us.....we put the rsvp at the bottom: with "if you dare"...The fear factor logo was at the top of the page and some spiders and rat pictures that were standard in the word program- we used a scary looking font and voila! easy invites.  We rolled them up and sealed them with a FF sticker- homemade- by prininting out the logo onto sticker paper.  When the kids arrived, (there were 18 in all)we sent them to the eating area where there were 5 jars set up with 5 weird parts of animals in jars sealed with water.  There was a paper and pencil in front of each jar and each child signed their name with their guess as to what was in the jar.  They were all sure they were going to have to eat these animal parts later (they did not have to of course- but it was neat to play along). 

Anyway in the jars were- calf hoof, liver, cow tongue, crickets (no water) and some earth worms (had to have one easy one...) This was basically just an ice breaker and a way to spend the first 5 or 10 minutes til everyone arrived.  There was also a jar full of gummy cinnamon flavoured red ants that I bought on clearance at the party supply store.  They also had to guess how many ants were in the jar.  Each jar had a black and yellow ribbon curled around it just to match. The tablecloth was black and there were black and yellow streamers and helium balloons in the eating room.  Once everyone arrived they were split into 2 teams- 9 on each side.  Each team had an adult captain- but we found they really didn't need the captain- they were old enough to do everything unassisted...One team got a yellow wristband for each member and the other team got a black wristband for each member.

Challenge #1: Lock challenge.  In the main area- (a huge open area)we played this game.  Each team chose one brave soul that would offer to be locked up.  That person was wrapped with nylon ropearound their legs and midsection while sitting on a chair.  So there was one chair with the black team's person and another chair with the yellow team's person locked up with 6 locks and their hands had handcuffs.  In total each team had to work together respectively to find 7 keys total- the 6 for the padlocks and the one for the handcuffs.  The keys were hidden throughout the big area of the facility.  The yellow team's keys had yellow ribbon strung thru them and the black team's keys had black ribbon thru them.  The kids had to find their teams keys. They were not allowed to touch the other teams locks - they could only get their own team's locks.  Once all the locks were found and put in a bowl at the tied up person's feet…they went to work trying out each key to each lock- the team that was done first and saved their tied up person- was the team that won.  The kids LOVED this game and it took longer than I thought for them to find their keys.

Challenge #2: Food challenge- very basic A big roasing pan full of rice (maggots) with gummi eyeballs inside.  We got these gummi eyeballs again on sale at the party supply store and they were GROSS. They were 20cents each and we put some of the yellow-eyed ones in the rice.  It's hard to explain but it was very gross.  We brought a computer printout of a big iguana or some kind of lizard that had a huge yellow eye in the pictue and told the kids this lizard's eye thing was a delicassy. With the kids still in their two teams we asked them questions about the birthday child- What is Haiely's favourtie singer, band, where was she born etc. There were 5 questions in all.  If the kids got the answer right- their team had to only eat one eyeball- a wrong answer earned them 2 eyeballs. 

At the end of the questions each team had their alloted number of eyeballs to eat in maggots so we spooned the right number of eyeballs in a big bed of rice in front of each team.  Each team decided who was going to eat their own allotment of food.  If one person wanted to eat all the eyeballs or if each person wanted to eat one, or if there was just 2 or 3 brave souls per team that was fine as long as all the food was eaten.  The other kids who decided not to eat cheered the others on.  This worked well because a couple of parents of some of the more timid kids said their child had been nervous about coming because of what they might have to eat.  This way- the team still had a chance to win even if a couple of people didn't want to eat.  Anyway that was the one and only food challenge.  We couldn't make a mess in the facility- so that was gross enough.

The third challenge was a physical obstacle course that each member of the team was timed doing- the team that had the best average time all together was the winning team.  They started when the horn blew.  They ran through about four tires, crawled under 6 chairs came out, walked across a 2 X4 balance beam style, ran again and had to hit the human target with wiffle balls who was about 20 feet away.  3 had to hit the moving target (my husband).  It was harder than it sounds. Anyway that tired out the kids and was perfect because it was time to eat the (real) meal. We went back to the eating area which was adorned by this time with yellow plates and cutlery on the black table cloth. Each person had a small bottle of cola- we had previously removed the labels off these and they had the FF log on them. We had ordered a 6 foot sub that we cut up (mystery meat sandwhich)for the kids.  There were gummy rats (party supply store)and some more of the red chewy ants just sprinkled on the table for effect. (but the kids did eat them).

The cake was plain white with black trim. I had the FF logo transferred onto edible decals at the bakery for $7 and added this myself to the cake with some plastic flies and spiders on the top.  It looked good (I mean disgusting!) We removed the flies etc. before serving up the cake. The prize winners were announced for the guess the # of red ants contest and the "name the animal etc. parts " that were in the jars. The prizes were movie passes (uncreative I know)with a tag with the FF logo attached saying: "Use this to see a scary movie".

For the team prizes- there was a winning team but I love everybody to have a prize so the way I did this was I had two boxes each of different sizes. Each was wrapped in yellow paper.  Inside each box was prizes enough for each team.  The winning team got to pick their prize first. Inside one box was enough black rubber balls with the FF logo on them- one for each person.  The other box contained FF mad libs books- enough for one each. 

The loot bags were yellow lunch bags with homemade FF logs on them.  I labeled them by putting: "Evidently Fear is not a Factor for_____(the child's name). Inside, was a gummy eyeball, a big baggie full of sour gummy worms, a package of the cinnamon red ants, a package of fireball gobstoppers, a gummi rat, a big huge spider that sticks to the wall, a pair of play handcuffs. The party was really not as complicated as it sounds.  I usually plan my kids parties months in advance but this one I planned in about two weeks.  I lucked out at the party store with the gummi eyeballs, ants and rats. A good time to stock on homemade FF party goods would be after Halloween at the clearance sales for gross things. 

Anyway I hope you can use some of these ideas and thanks for your ideas too!

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