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Survivor Party  -  Challenge at the Lake

September 2004

Amy in Syracuse,  New York,   United States

Honorable Mention

As big fans of the television show Survivor, I thought it would be cool to throw a survivor party for my daughter.  This party turned out to be a huge success and it is suitable for boys and girls of all ages. 

Our party consisted of a sleepover and five challenges. We had our party at our camp on a lake but that is not necessary. So no one felt left out, instead of voting people off, we gave prizes to the winners of each game.  These prizes were what we called "Survivor Bucks"  The first place winner would receive five bucks, the second place winner four bucks and so on. 

Then at the end of the party we had an auction where we would auction off two kinds of party favors: boredom survival and wilderness survival.  These things were auctioned in paper bags so no one knew what they were bidding for.  Now, we had five challenges in the party. 

The first challenge we did was a diving challenge.  There were four kids at the party so we threw three diving sticks into the water.  When I said go, the kids would dive in the water and look for a stick.  The one person who came up without a stick and the rest of the kids had sticks, then the kid who didn't have a stick was out of the game.  Every round there was one less stick until there was only one stick left and two kids.  Then whoever got that stick would win the game. 

Our next challenge was an obstacle course.  We divided the kids into two teams.  The teams would run to two separate piles of leaves and dig through the leaves until they found a set of about four keys.  Then the teams would run to two different locks (each team was told before the game which lock was theirs) and try all of the keys until one opened the lock.  We put keychains on the lock so once they got the lock opened they would grab the keychain and run to their tree in which a stick was tied to the trunk with a rope knotted about five times. 

The kids had to untie the rope, get the stick out, and then tie the rope to the tree again knotting it at least five times.  Then the teams ran to another pile of leaves (still with the keychain and the stick) and could only dig through the pile with their stick, no hands allowed, to find the bandana the same color as their team's assigned color.  Whoever made it across the finish line first with their keychain, stick, and bandana would win the game. 

Our next challenge was a slingshot challenge.  We took four different empty soda cans and placed them on a railing.  Each kid was assigned their own soda can.  Then we assigned the order of who goes first and gave the first one in line a slingshot and rock.  The goal of the game was to knock off your opponents cans without getting yours knocked off.  If your can was knocked off, you were out of the game.  For younger childen you could just have them toss small balls at the cans instead of using a slingshot. 

Our next challenge was a mental challenge.  We asked the kids multiple choice questions about surviving in the wilderness.  Whoever had the most answers correct would win. 

Our final challenge was a "Gross Food" challenge.  We bought foods like a gross looking tomato, cheese and basil pinwheel, a gummy rat, those harry potter every flavor jellybeans (and only used the icky flavors), and some baby food.  We put the items in paper plates and then covered up the plates with another plate on top.  The plates were labled 1-4 and the kids rolled a die and got the plate that had the number they rolled on it.  They were then timed on how long it took them to eat the foods.  Whoever got their food down in the least amount of time won. 

The kids had some time leftover so as a craft I bought plain bandanas and permanent markers and I let the kids decorate the bandanas as the buffs used on survivor. 

For foods for the party you can get anything. You just have to make up a gross story about it like if you had hamburgers for dinner you could say that the kids were eating cow brains.

For invitations you could have a glued together string of plastic bugs with words written on their backs.

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