Monday, October 22, 2012

Hobbit Party {or what happens when both your parents are nerds}

Last weekend we celebrated Jack's sixth birthday. Love that kid. 
In the last three years we've read The Hobbit (twice) and most of The Lord of the Rings 
(we're half-way through The Return of the King). He has an awesome attention span 
and he loves to snuggle up and hear a good story.

(Please excuse the ridiculous number of photos in this post. 
I wanted to provide some details for all you Hobbit party-planners out there.)


Scott and I had a great time coming up with how to have a Hobbit party. (We're nerdy like that.)
I penned (with my fountain pen--nerd again) invitations using the text from the note Thorin leaves on Bilbo's mantle, inviting all the burglars on the adventure.


When they arrived at "The Green Dragon Inn" we fed them a hobbit-y kind of a lunch: 


sandwiches on freshly baked biscuits, 


fruit, pumpkin scones with cream and jam, and cups of root beer.


Over lunch, I gave the kids a little summary of the story ~ 
a quest to defeat Smaug and win back Thorin's treasure. 


Each "burglar" received his own map with the trail marked in red. 
I labeled each of the challenges they would face on their quest.


Our party activities were as follows:
  • Stone Troll Tag
  • Riddles in the Dark
  • Spiders and Flies
  • Barrels out of Bond
  • The Black Arrow
 After each activity we consulted the map and I had the kids figure out what came next. Then I explained a bit of the story to go with that activity.

Stone Troll Tag: We played a game of freeze tag. Scott was the "troll" trying to freeze the kids by tagging them. They played until I announced that the sun had risen and Scott was turned into stone. Then I gave each child a blue glow-in-the-dark sword ("Sting") from the trolls' treasure trove. (Gotta love the dollar store.)


Riddles in the Dark: We asked the kids riddles which gave them the right to go into Gollum's cave. Scott constructed a cave out of six large black garbage bags, opened up and duct taped together to make a giant bag. (This may qualify him as the biggest nerd, or coolest dad, you decide.) 


He left a large hole (child-size) at one end for the entrance. He left a small hole (the size of our fan) at the other end. Duct tape the small hole around the edges of the fan and when it's turned on it should fill the "bag" with air, inflating it into a giant cave.

Disclaimer: I thought this idea was insane when he described it to me--it sounded like a death trap. 
(What? We're going to have a bunch of kids crawl in to a giant garbage bag?) 
Once he had it set up, it made perfect sense and didn't seem risky to me. 
That said, make the evaluation yourself and do this activity at your own risk.


We put the gold rings (on brown ribbon) around inside the cave and I painted a gollum to go at the far end. The kids had to crawl inside with their glowing "stings" and find their rings.


I found a package of the gold rings in the jewelry section at Michael's. They are key-chain-type rings.







Spiders and Flies: Halloween cobweb decoration and dollar store spiders 
made a spider tunnel for the kids to break through.



Creepy!



Barrels out of Bond: I picked up Arrowhead water bottles to serve as our barrels. I wished I could have found something that looked more barrel-like, but no luck. The kids had to get the barrels from the elven king's hall (the spa) to the end of Long Lake (the pool) using pool noodles and other tools (no hands).

This required some good teamwork, and luckily no one fell in.
The Black Arrow: The final challenge was defeating Smaug by shooting him with Jack's archery set. (Not a nerd to be seen here--this is just cool!)

Each child had a few chances to shoot at the target.
And after the thrill of victory . . .
each child got his share of the treasure (a bag of chocolate gold coins).

I'm hoping these hobbits are inspired to read Tolkien's great book 
now that they've had a little taste of the adventure. 


Jack had a great time. I'm so thankful for his wonderful friends 
and for the sweet six year old he has become.

9 comments:

  1. Well done!! Eli had such a great time, and I'm so glad it was so well documented with pictures and the whole party story ~ Happy Birthday Jack! You have the coolest nerd parents ever!

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  2. This is awesome! I am glad we are not the only ones.
    We just finished reading the Hobbit with our soon to be 7 year old, and she requested a Hobbit party (this upcoming weekend). My husband and I are totally into it, and crafting waaaaay too much.
    Your party looked like a blast!
    you can check out some of my crafts- like Hobbit feet- here:
    http://www.falafelandthebee.com/2012/11/20/making-hairy-feet-a-tutorial/
    ~Michelle

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  3. That is so cool! You have posted so many wonderful ideas that I am thinking of stealing for our party! I don't know where to begin. Love the wording of the"contract". We had in mind doing something simiilar. I like the idea of making your home into a pretend inn. Nice touch. Love the archery game. Too bad that we can't do anything outside as our party will be in Feb. We already have an archery set and bale of hay. If only I could I could figure out how to do it in doors! Also, like the idea of posting pictures from the Hobbit on the treat bags. You have so many great ideas and they will fit well with what what we are already planing!

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  4. This is fabulous! My husband spent the summer reading The Hobbit to our 6-year-old twins, and they are just about to finish up. We have a little tradition of having a family "movie party" after we finish a great book or series (The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, etc.) - talk about nerdy, we won't let our kids watch certain movies until after they've read the book! ;) Your ideas will definitely come in handy for our Hobbit movie party. Thanks for sharing your awesome nerdiness! :)

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  5. I just stumbled across this post in looking for Hobbit ideas for a trunk or treat event and (even though I don't usually leave comments on folks' blogs I don't know) I had to say this is truly amazing!! JR Tolkien would be most proud :-)

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  6. I love this! I hope you don't mind me using some of these ideas. Your artwork is just great! God bless!

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  7. These are amazing ideas that I just came across! We are about to start reading The Hobbit in my class, and I’m definitely borrowing some of these ideas, tweaking them, and using them with my students! :)

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  8. Where can I buy the posters, bags, dragon poster?

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  9. This is amazing! Great ideas! I'm having a party for 4 middle grade girls who just finished the hobbit. Archery is a must, as well as the golum cave lol!

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