Teenage Scavenger Hunt birthday party game

 

 

Now that I have a teenager, birthday parties are a bit easier. Just get them all together and provide pizza. What more do you need? Well, you need *something*... 

Enter the Teenage Scavenger Hunt. It gives some of that craved independence (I let them go out on their own in teams), puts those ubiquitous smartphones to good use (seriously, the endless scrolling?!), and adds some fun (the laughs and smiles were proof of that). I scoured the internet for ideas. A compilation of the best I found, plus my own ideas, resulted in what's provided here. (Plus some minor improvements based on our experience!) Feel free to use as-is, or use as a springboard for your own hunt.

 

As the judge, my favorite definitely was the bonus "Gertrude the Llama" video challenge. So hilarious. This was one stolen from somebody who stole it from somebody else who was labeled as "Source Unknown." So, thank you Source Unknown. It was brilliant. I'd link to you. Buuuut, you know.

In coming up with your own scavenger hunt, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Know your neighborhood. Tailor some hunting to what you know is in the area. For example, we live near a park, so having all team members go down a slide was one challenge.
• Create a map. Set clear boundaries for the hunt. Ours was a seven-by-three block area to include two nearby parks, and to exclude crossing any major roadways.
• Definitely have rules. Have a debrief with the teams before they leave to stress safety and respect. It's teenagers. So, quiz them before they go!
• Have a dedicated team member whose phone number you have and who has yours. Along with being available for their questions or concerns, I could text them much-needed 15-minute and 5-minute warnings!
  

Other things to think about?

Timing. I did this between pizza and dessert. They could eat their dessert while I judged the results.

Stick to your guns. The rules are your friend. Think about them, then stick to them. Teens can be surprisingly competitive, and having rules to point to helps when you have to disappoint one who's facing a loss.

Prizes. Gotta be honest. I did not know what to do here. I can tell you that stickers and bookmarks aren't all that desirable. But, for some reason, neither was the mini Sasquatch (?!). Your comments on good teenage prizes (that don't break the bank) are welcome for the next time I do this...

Team spirit. I drew names at random to mix teens up and try to break up cliques. Different colored bandanas served as team identifiers. Next time, I also would have them come up with team names.

So there you go. Teenagers are simple. So is this game. Winner!

silly = sane Teenage Scavenger Hunt free PDF

silly = sane Teenage Scavenger Hunt free DOC

perfect activity for "Perfect Square"

by Melissa

a good lesson for the future mathematician and artist -- and perhaps a skill-building antidote for a trending perfectionist -- comes through Michael Hall's "Perfect Square," a picture book about a square whose life takes many unexpected turns.

It was a perfect square.

It had four matching corners

and four equal sides.

And it was perfectly happy.

But on Monday,

the square was cut into pieces

and poked full of holes.

It wasn’t perfectly square anymore.

this is sort of like Lego blocks. the girls get these amazing sets, build them according to the directions, and then play with them in their storytelling adventures -- great, great, great (or should I say awesome?). but just as great: them tearing it all apart and creating whatever wacky invention they can think up.

my youngest and i used the "Perfect Square" for some literal hands-on lessons. i took square sheets of paper, cut them up into random shapes, then challenged her to see what she could create out of them.

 her favorite was a rocket ship.

she also created a mountain scene.

and then she convinced me that we didn't need a background page at all and constructed a paper sculpture of a river. (now that's thinking outside the box!)

it was a fun activity. and now that i think of it, i might just add it to our Summer Cups list of indoor fun. or save a large box and make it an outdoor patio activity. maybe even use a different shape...

i'm starting to think like my kiddo rather than a rule-following adult. how perfectly awesome...

whiskey tango... from adult stocking stuffer to travel story toy

by Melissa

my husband appreciates a good whiskey, and happened to mention it once. so inevitably at Christmas time an in-law gets him a bottle or two. last year, a trio of The Glenlivet came to his "stocking" in a gift box. being a good Pacific Northwestern'r, i endeavored to take the box apart for the big green bin, but the cool magnetic closure didn't seem very recycle-friendly. meanwhile, i also had noticed how much our girls loved playing with a fold-up storytelling box picked up at a garage sale. but there was only one, for two girls... hmm...

so, to spark your own DIY imaginings, here's the transformation from container-for-tasty-adult-beverage to travel-ready-storytelling-toy, the perfect size for small princess characters, super heroes, mini ponies, or green army men.

Step 1 - Acquire Box

remove contents, drink, and enjoy (responsibly).

Step 2 - Detoxify

in this case, i had a can of gold spray paint ready to redeem the exterior of this box so no nosy nannies might wonder about my fitness for parenthood. you could also Modge Podge with some cool paper.

Step 3 - Set the Scene

i cut out nature scenes from magazines, traced the shapes, and cut and pasted them to fit inside. if i were to do it again, i would also mount several additional scenes on cardstock to fit snugly over top so that the girls can switch out scenes.

Step 4 - Pack Up & Go

stash your chosen characters inside the box, close 'er up and hit the road. perfect for hotel rooms and plane rides. if you do lose it, hey, you're not out too much, right?

this post contains affiliate links.

Dinovember 2015

the dinosaurs come alive every November. it's a mystery... we never know what they're going to get into. follow along with this year's Dinovember adventures on our silly = sane Facebook page.

cardboard forts are recyclable, remake-able, remarkable FUN!

in a certain sense, we are still on a fort hunt. that is, there's no permanent fort happening at the not-so-new house like there was at the old house (which, these days, is only a playhouse for mildewing leaves and creeping morning glory).

i take that back. if you count the hard plastic house variety, we do have a permanent fort. my fellow blogging mommy gave us their cast-off "log" house (score!). Sweet One has dubbed it her and sister's Little House in the Big City since we've been reading through the Little House books. 

it also has been a fine Blueberry Cafe Drive-Thru, and a trial area for their decorating aesthetics that lean heavily toward floral accents.

but what i've discovered is that my girls' imaginations, for whatever reason, come most alive with indoor forts. and in that arena, our greatest success has been in the temporary fort.

we still occasionally do bedsheet forts in entire rooms.

a pop-up tunnel and square addition often make for handy escape routes and secret passageways for the sneaky Strawberry Pirates.

a large dining table and huge quilts make for quite an excellent cave (especially since we never seem to actually eat in the dining room anyway). LED candles help provide a "fire" for the giggly cave-dwellers.

there's a little nook under my computer station beside a metal filing cabinet that's perfect for magnet play.

but our most fun efforts so far have been with that Toy Hall of Fame fave: the cardboard box.

we turned a large safe box into a cardboard house, complete with sloping roof, door, and mail slot.

(i sent them a welcoming note.)

and then there was my mommy genius moment -- cardboard bed forts. 

we recently bought a new modular couch set. we figured we'd let the girls play with the giant boxes before collapsing them down for recycling. but they were gigantic and taking up way too much space. after eyeing them for a bit, a light bulb went off. they were exactly the width of a twin mattress. 

and the bed fort was born.

i slipped the mattress into the box to hold it in place. Small One wanted to be able to close the "door" flap on hers. for Sweet One, we taped the box so it would stay open, but dangled a sheet over that she could use to close herself up. they decorated and re-decorated with markers and glow-in-the dark stars. it made bed time something to look forward to! Small One named her bed fort her "AlonE SlEEPy" place.

then they got tired and bored one day and proceeded to rip them apart. 

but, hey, that's ok... the recycling bin is where the boxes were destined to go anyway. free fun, and no hard feelings when the toy finally "broke"... well, ok, maybe i felt a twinge of sadness for seeing my awesome idea finally meet its end.

now i'm wondering when we'll see another big cardboard box, and what fort idea it may bring next time...

beyond the fun and pre-engineering skills it brings, i am liking the temporary fort approach for purely mommy reasons too. namely, being content with the simple in the midst of a very busy time in life. 

i love giving my girls imaginative play spaces. when we were looking at buying our current house, part of what drew me were the grand visions in my head of turning the garage attic into a kids' wonderland with twisting tube slide exit... or turning the house attic into a giant playroom with cozy book nook overlooking the Cascade Mountains... clearly, that hasn't happened, and isn't likely too. my imagination often outpaces reality and logistics. ... and they were far-off places. is it really that surprising that my girls' favorite fort places are usually under my feet or only the next room over? i'll miss that desire for nearness when they inevitably hit puberty and seek to make themselves scarce.

those grand attic ideas are still in my head. but the girls are growing up fast. and sometimes dreams are just that -- and that's ok. even as an adult. a cardboard box is a castle, you know.

our not-so-frozen "Frozen" birthday party, with a gelatin ice castle recipe!

by Melissa

after going through several theme ideas since the conclusion of her last birthday (kites, rainbows, princesses), Sweet One at the last moment settled on a "Frozen" theme based on the hit Disney movie. i am sure all mothers of young girls out there are shocked, shocked i say. here is where we ended up with our "Frozen" birthday party...

the cake


i think i can claim this one as my own. at least, i haven't seen it done yet. this is a gelatin "ice" castle cake, using a dollar store sand-castle pail as a mold, white grape juice as the liquid, and fancy sugar sprinkles for the additions that make it sparkle and give it that ethereal North Mountain feel (if not nearly the exact look... i'm not that crazy, and thankfully my daughter is not that literal). see the separate gelatin "ice" castle cake recipe post for the full how-to...

the rest of the menu


we followed a largely blue-and-white theme on the food front, including...

• yogurt frozen pops (vanilla yogurt with pureed blueberries, poured into Dixie cup molds with lollipop stick handles)
• carrot "snowman noses" with ranch dressing dip
• white chocolate-covered pretzels
• frozen blueberries
• popcorn
• marshmallow snowflakes, and "snowballs" made from the extras

my dear friend Krista introduced me to the wonders of homemade marshmallows on a gourmet camping trip (i provided the homemade graham crackers). and ever since i have found that i actually like marshmallows! i never was a fan of the store-bought ones. part of the allure is, of course, the ability to adjust the flavor as desired. i religiously use the Smitten Kitchen marshmallow recipe. for the birthday party, i used half vanilla and half almond extract for flavoring. yum, yum. some of them i coated in sugar that i had mixed with blue food coloring.

if i had to do it over, i would use the snowflake cookie cutter and make actual cut-out cookies. using the cookie cutter on the marshmallows wasn't very exact and they ended up looking more like stars than snowflakes.

the kids liked the blueberry-yogurt frozen pops the best. which was awesome, because it was the healthiest thing on the menu. ha! take that, sugar high! although, speaking of sugar high...

the activities

we joined a popular "Frozen" party activity by making marshmallow snowmen. we used homemade marshmallows, pretzel sticks, dark chocolate chips, and baby carrots cut down to size for noses. kids made their snowmen as they arrived or in between snacking.

full credit for our single party game goes to my creative friend Aryn and, more specifically, her epically brilliant young daughter, who is even more enamored with "Frozen" than my girls. little Rayne had the awesome idea of playing freeze tag. and to unfreeze a player? you have to give them a hug! oh, Olaf would be so proud... and, it is the perfect way to run off a sugar high! just let it go, girls. let it go...

the prizes


i put in my online order way too late. and even with going to a record-breaking eight stores in a single day trying to make up for such bad planning (two stores in a day is my usual emotional limit), i still didn't find
what i had planned for the treat bags. the key missing prizes were blue rock candy sticks and sparkly snowflake stickers. making your own rock candy takes two weeks, and i definitely didn't plan things that far in advance. the snowflake stickers at the "Frozen"-train-riding craft store were stupid expensive (keep in mind, we're still in the stick-the-stickers-into-one-amorphous-pile stage, here). so instead we ended up with some primo blue and white candy from our local sweets shop: birthday cake-flavor coated caramels, and blue raspberry burst gummies. some Disney "Frozen" brand stickers that were reasonably priced. and we topped it off with a great find from Sweet One at the dollar store: bubble wands in the shape of blue microphones! perfect for a "Let It Go" singalong... and i don't need to tell you that a singalong did ensue with little girls clutching these microphone bubbles, with no prompting whatsoever. i got a deal earlier on the soundtrack for our "entertainment," although as most of you can probably guess, the girls needed no help with the lyrics for their bubbly singalong...

the decorations

no big decorating here. just a couple six-point snowflakes cut from white and silver paper, then placed on a blue tablecloth. there are several instructions online for creating six-pointed snowflakes, such as here.

to highlight it all, though, i went for a giant sparkly 3-D snowflake made from a silver-foil gift bag using these instructions and suspended it from the light fixture, centered prettily above the cake.



below you'll find affiliate links to some of the products i recommend for Amazon shoppers looking to replicate our "Frozen" birthday party:

it's dinovember at our house

those silly dinosaurs are up to some fun-loving hijinks

by Melissa

every year, writer Refe Tuma and his wife devote the month of November to convincing their three young children that their plastic dinosaurs come to life. they take a snapshot, capturing the feisty fossils in various escapades (jamming, getting into the candy jar, unrolling the TP, breaking stuff, interrogating Michelangelo the TMNT, and occasionally cleaning up after themselves). i came across Tuma's post at Medium, and then quickly became a fan of Dinovember on Facebook as the fun concept went officially viral. "Childhood is fleeting, so let’s make sure it’s fun while it lasts," Tuma writes. amen! i dove right in. (and thus ends a too-long hiatus from this blog. i have many drafts that have remained just that. i promise to bring them to light soon. they involve mixed tapes and slugs. and maybe some silly-sanisms or two. but back to the dinosaurs...)

my cousin gave me her son's hand-me-down Dinosaur Train figures. Sweet One and Small One love this show. my oldest gets excited to tell me about what she's learned. my youngest giggles. we sing the song. it's good times. so now the familiar dinos are breaking out of the toy cupboard while the girls sleep.

the first night, the dinos decided to get all crafty and make secret messages to hide in the girls' lunchboxes. they snapped a photo mid-action (see above) and sent it to Mommy to share with the girls. at first, the girls were convinced this was daddy's doing (sigh). then the idea that dinosaurs came to life while they were sleeping really set in, and Sweet One became Detective Sweet One. "i have to figure this out!" she commenced to steal the camera while i was finishing up dinner and took some video. then she snapped photos of evidence.

yes, a photo of a photo

she interviewed suspects.

ok, maybe just one suspect

she tried to determine their next target.

not the pumpkins!

for a while she was plotting to sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and catch them in the act again. but then we reminded her of the consequences for getting out of bed. so she shifted tactics, and instead left the dinos some notes of her own. the dinos did not disappoint...

this time, they raided Small One's Basket of Things That Go. ho, boy...

something tells me these dinos are enjoying their life brought back from the brink of extinction. (hand-me-downs rock!)

something tells me this cryolophosaurus is going
to be trouble. sigh. theropods will be theropods...

the look on this kentrosaurus' face ... and the fact that he's
riding backwards ... lead me to think he may not be the brightest
stegosaurid in the Jurassic time period

the ornithomimus checks under the hood of the '64 Dodge
(darn if that one isn't always failing to turn over for Little One),
while a velociraptor gives some velocity to the wind-up bug

there was no tank for Tank.
so the triceratops settled for the dozer.

the pteranodon siblings race.
Tiny is on a Mini... snicker

a mini maiasaura gets a lift

phew! no crash landings. Buddy the little T-rex shows he may
just belong in a pteranadon nest after all

what will they get into next time...? watch the silly = sane Facebook page for more of our Dinovember photos.

climbing back into the toy cupboard to sleep off
the mayhem... and plot their next move...

how about you? are you participating in Dinovember? don't have dinosaurs? how about Barbies, or princesses, or army men, or Lego dudes... the possibilities are endless, really. let your imagination go wild, and then watch your kids' imaginations blossom too.

summer cup time! easy thrills to put everyone at ease

by Melissa

it worked so well last year, i'm at it again this year. it's summer cup time! the red plastic drinking cups are being recycled for another year of "what's it gonna be?"-kind of fun. i'm even reusing most of the slips, although i dumped some and added others.

so far, we've flown kites, had a tea party, gone to a park (other than the normal park excursions, of course), and went for a hike on a new-to-us trail that led to a lovely little beach. new slips drawn so far this year have had us make our own volcano and sent the girls on a scavenger hunt. the last one was an homage to my own childhood summers. i still remember the summer that my mom and aunt sent us on a scavenger hunt, using clues in rhyme. i don't remember what was at the end, but i do remember thinking it was the coolest and funnest idea ever. my girls seemed to enjoy this year's simple hunt enough that it will definitely be an annual treat.

but also new this year are some momma-focused slips. things that remind me to slow down a bit and remind myself of just how good i have it (why do we always have to remind ourselves when it's so obvious?). these include slips that direct us to look at each of the girls' baby albums, as well as "look at mommy and daddy's wedding photos." the girls enjoyed this as much as i did.

another new slip was to each create a list of "5 Happies." this is something two of my high-school friends and i did together by passing a notebook back and forth, usually during our boring math class*. at the time, many of the happies went along the lines of "5 more minutes until math class is over" or "2 weeks to summer!"

*  (the school-lover in me requires this disclaimer: math is useful, beautiful and worth your effort, kids!)

when my daughter drew the "5 Happies" slip, i was curious to see what she and her sister would come up with. appropriately, they both listed their own names as things that they were thankful for or that made them happy. my youngest, who has a habit of drawing all over the furniture and her own body parts, dictated "markers" as one of her happies. my eldest, surrounded by her favorite stories in our home library, listed "books." we had just visited my grandmother, and the comfort of being doted on was fresh in my spirit, so "Nana's soup" made my list, as well as "a willow tree outside the window."

these for-me slips have proven to be peaceful interludes to what is more often an upbeat activity to fill our summer and make our times together more fun and fulfilling. goodness knows a parent like me appreciates those moments of peace, and the reminder of how awesome it is to spend a summer with my young kids -- and it's not even over yet!

what fun activities are helping your family celebrate summer? share your best and easiest ideas in the comments. let's help each other make this last month the best month of a sun-filled interlude, yes?

bubble birthday party

by Melissa

Sweet One turns 6 this year and requested a bubble birthday this year to celebrate with her friends. awesome! so we did just that. simple idea, simple execution. it's the ultimate fun and easy party idea.

until you start looking at other blogs, of course.

do you ever have this problem? i'm having fun, coming up with goofy ideas, looking forward to giving my daughter some happy times for her special day. and then i do a Google-image or Pinterest search for what other folks have done for bubble parties, if only to feel good about the awesome ideas i've come up with and that are surely completely original... and, lo and behold, i start feeling inadequate looking at these professional photographs, slick printables, elaborate decorations, and -- gasp! -- the super-bubble recipe i've been wondering about that involves specialized ingredients and mail-ordering from veterinary and medical supply stores! oh no! i was just planning on having a lot of bubbles and recycling my kid-in-a-giant-bubble trick from last year, maybe buy a pack of donut holes and call it good. but now...

put on the bubble brakes, Momma!

good gravy. thank goodness i caught myself this time.

people, i do not have the time to make this blog my life. i barely have time to do this post. in fact, there are three things i can think of off the top of my head that i most certainly should be doing right now instead of this. mostly i'm keeping this blog alive for two reasons: (a) writing posts like this feeds the premise of the blog by reminding myself to be silly and therefore remain sane and (b) as a professional writer it is one more way to keep myself "fresh" and "in tune" with today's digital landscape, at least in a vague way. and, if i'm lucky, there's also: (c) you readers still get something out of what i and my friends post here! so when my thoughts turn to "oh, that would look awesome on the blog" -- even for half a second -- instead of "oh, Sweet One would LOVE this simple-yet-fun idea and i already have what we need" ... then the focus is way off.

she's happy = success

silly = sane.

super-blogger-momma-slickster-hipster-look-at-me = insane.

can i get a bubble booyeah?

so for this birthday party, i did what i usually do (or usually try to do). i slapped together ideas as they came to me, ditched others when they became even remotely complicated, lived by my season-of-life-mantra of "good enough," and sought out my daughter's giggles and smiles for affirmation and confirmation of success.

the result? score massive bubble points for Momma.

now, this was not lazy momma. trust me when i say that this is, for me, going all-out for my kid. when it comes to my girls' birthdays, i put on my creative hat and take things to the next level. but i'm doing it for them. i'm their Momma and i'm doing something extra-special for them -- and they know that and appreciate it. i'm not doing it for you! so on this blog, you get no printables, no fondant tips, no recommendations for a hired bubble professional (or even a link to veterinary gel). instead, here is a breakdown of where we ended up, maybe giving you some ideas to get your own creative juices flowing for a birthday party without the headaches of parental inadequacy. and for you other bloggin' mommas out there, here is the larger theme of this post: live first. blog later.

the cake

i'll have to share in another post some day all about birthday cakes. i am not a cake maker. i have a few friends who are professional-grade cake makers. they are incredible. i don't even like cake, to be honest. but for my girls, i become my own good-enough version of an Ace of Cakes. a harbor with a shark. a moat-encircled castle. a huge ball gown. a muddy construction site. this time i went for something resembling bubbles to keep with the theme. i bought a Betty Crocker rainbow cake mix (the first time, actually, i haven't done it from scratch -- you now officially have my permission to cut corners), borrowed a friend's cake-pop maker, and made batch after batch of little round cakes. actually, since i used a cake mix, most of them did not turn out very circular and of course they were more brown than rainbow-looking after being baked. so i tore off the outer shell of the worst duds, revealing the spherical, rainbow insides and put those "bubbles" on top. i was going to use a big bowl, but then saw my husband's old travel humidor and had one of those a-ha moments. cleaned it. lined it with plastic wrap (which, incidentally, looks like bubble solution too), filled it with cake bubbles and bubble wands, then made a bubble label from scrap paper, Post-It notes and highlighter pens to complete the look. (seriously people. i didn't even bother going upstairs to get the construction paper, fancy markers and circle cutter -- although i own all of those things.) one of those slap-it-together ideas that actually turned out pretty darn good. or at least -- say it with me now -- good enough!

the favors

we aimed for bubble-focused treats with bubble solution (shaped like ice cream cones, which is perfect for a birthday party), bubble gum, squares of bubble wrap, and a straw. everything except the gum came from the dollar store, and the gum was bought in bulk for less than 50 cents at the grocery store, making for a very affordable yet fun treat for her little friends.



the decorations

we also planned a toy swap in lieu of traditional gifts,
a special addition to what her friends were able to take home
with them while making it easier on the parents, too

i hadn't planned any decorations. i knew i wouldn't have time to get balloons, and honestly didn't want the hassle with stores being out of helium more than half the time anyway. i considered cutting out a bunch of circles and suspending them on strings -- an idea i saw during that infamous Google-image search -- but between work and baking all those little cakes, i would have been staying up to 2 a.m. doing that. uh, no. so here was another part of the party that came together on a whim an hour before the party. we had leftover bubble wrap, so i gave Sweet One the squares and some tape and let her decorate with those, which she loved. she also started drawing a bubble path on the patio with blue chalk for a game she thought of, giving me another "oh yeah! duh" moment. so i put the chalk to work myself and just drew a bunch of fun bubbles everywhere. botta bing botta bubble.

the fun

a bucket full of our two-ingredient bubbles
plus some sugar for strengthening such a large batch
makes for easy and big bubbles!

just a ton of bubbles. i splurged on a bubble machine and regretted the purchase -- i don't recommend the kind we bought, which fans them out the top. we had to constantly wipe the top so the bubbles would still come out, and then it decided to completely stop working even with fresh batteries and it was brand new! we had much more success with a battery-powered fan you hold in your hand -- and boy did that thing pump out the bubbles. otherwise we just put out a bunch of wands and let the kids go nuts. i put out a bucket filled with our homemade bubble solution, adding sugar since it was a big batch. we also did our kid-in-a-bubble trick, which turned out to be a big hit. and we tried some giant bubbles with a string-and-pole style wand that Sweet One received for a previous birthday. i'll put links to some of the things we enjoy at the bottom of this post for reference.

what about you? what fun and easy birthday parties have you come up with? what did your kids best enjoy?



the following are sponsored links, as if you couldn't tell, of some of the bubble-fun items we bought or others bought for us that worked and are consistently used by our family. in most cases these are not the exact items we have but very, very close: