Ninjago Party

ninja training

this says Happy Birthday

For Williams birthday this year I actually tried to talk him into taking his friends to a place like  Jump on It.  An indoor trampoline arena, or an arcade place.  I knew I was stretched pretty thin with a lot of other obligations on my plate.  Of all my kids I thought for sure William would go for it but he told me no he wanted a Ninjago party.  I guess this is all my doing, giving them my kind of parties all the time.  So I got to work with every spare minute I had.  (All 10 of them).  This was one of my least expensive parties. First thing was the invites.  I thought I would stick to the ninja theme and make the invites scrolls.  Using my basic print shop I stole the Ninjago logo from the Internet then cut them out and glued chopsticks to them.  Courtesy of Panda Express. (Anything for free right?) Then I made each guest their own pair of nunchucks.

mid battle

I got some pipe insulation from Home Depot. .97 cents for a 6 ft length.  I got 4 because he invited 15 kids. To string the 2 sticks together I poked a hole with a toothpick that had the boondoggle lacing taped to it this seemed to be the easiest method.  I strung all the sticks on the same length of lacing so I wouldn't have to re-tape the toothpick.  After each string was cut to the desired length with 2 sticks on it I slid the knot into the center of the pipe foam. Last step was electricians tape all the way around and down.  Viola nunchucks.  These were a huge hit at the party.

Once all the guests arrived we donned them in some ninja masks made out of T-shirts then headed outside to do our ninja training with my home made obstacle course.  Because the Ninjago guys spin before they attack I had the boys get on a saucer sled that we spun around then sent them off.  First was the balance beams ( 3 lengths of 2x4's raised on blocks) Then they had to climb the wall of the play set and go down the slide.  Next they crawled through the tunnel, jumped over then under some raised crepe paper, climbed up and over the ladder, then weaved in and out of lawn chairs racing back to the start.

Of course with the all these boys they loved this activity.  They wanted to do it over and over again until it was too dark and cold to continue.

Inside we learned how to make ninja throwing stars that were to be used for a later activity. This proved to be harder for the boys than it should have.  It was very basic origami and we went step by step but some boys just couldn't seem to get it.  Luckily others got it down and helped those that were not very good listeners.

Then it was on to the battle.  For the battle I tied tons of balloons to a string and hung them from the ceiling. Some had snake heads drawn on them some were blank and some that had good guys drawn on them. The boys were instructed to go down and destroy all the bad guys.  However if they killed a good guy they were out of the game.  This was THE BEST activity for 15 wild  boys.  Using nothing but their nunchucks they obliterated the enemy.  Some did not pay attention and killed the good guys so they had to sit out.  After the battle we tried our luck with the throwing stars.  I set little balloons on top of tubes where the kids had to knock the balloons off their tubes with the stars.  They got 3 throws to see who could knock to most balloons down.  3 was the winning number.  The winners of all the games got rubber snakes as their trophies. 

Lastly it was time for William's favorite food pizza.  Do to the shortage of time the cake was cupcakes with a very sad rendition of a ninja on top that I cut out of fondant.  I think next time I will cancel the piano lesson  right before a party so I can have more time to put my finishing touches on the party. (This time I didn't because I was having a recital the next day and I needed my student to have one more lesson to make sure he was ready.)