He doesn't actually own the video game, hasn't seen the movies, or read the books, he just played a demo of it once and has heard all about it and really liked the idea of it all, so we went with it.
We hosted the party Saturday morning at about 10:00 am. When the kids first arrived we had a bin of fun elf, dwarf, hobbit, warrior and wizard dress up clothes out that they all played around with while waiting for everyone to get there. Originally we were going to take pictures of Corbin with each guest all decked out and then send them to the one hour photo place down the street and have Caleb run and pick them up half way through the party so we could send a picture home with each kid as a party favor... that didn't happen though :)
Once everyone had arrived we sat them all down around the table and, borrowing a few cultural elements from the Hobbit book, served second breakfast to all the kids. Corbin's favorite foods are all breakfast foods and most parents are like us on a Saturday morning and the kids get a bowl of cold cereal on the way out the door if they're lucky, so it really worked out. We ate pancakes, sausage, fruit and bagels.
Then to start, since every kid knew about Lord of the Rings, but very few knew all the characters or plot points, we found a nice little video summary of the Lord of the Rings story line someone put together from clips of the LEGO version of the video game, thank you YouTube!
Once the kids finished watching the movie we explained that they were going to go on their own quest today:
Frodo Baggins received the ‘One Ring’ at Bilbo’s birthday
party. He then met with friends to form
the ‘Fellowship of the Ring.’ Their mission was to take the ring to Mordor
where they were supposed to destroy it by throwing it into Mount Doom. At
Corbin’s birthday party today you will all make your own fellowship and
complete your own quest by following the clues. For your first clue, look under
an object that shares its name with a rodent and controls a screen.
These video game obsessed kids immediately ran to the xbox controllers and completely overlooked the whole rodent half of the clue, but eventually made their way over to the computer mouse where they found the next clue.
To begin the quest you must first find the one ring. Search through the bin of legos for the magic ring. But careful, the Ringwraiths are also looking for the ring, if you take out any other pieces other than the ring you will reveal your location to them and they will defeat you.
We had one tiny gold ring from a Lego set Corbin had that we showed to all the kids, then we put it into Corbin's Lego bin, mixed it up and told them they had to find it without dumping the Legos out. This actually proved to be much harder than we had anticipated because every time someone would see it, someone else would shove more Legos on top in their search until we finally stepped in and showed them how much better it is if we all work together and have one person slide the pieces around while everyone looks together. Eventually they found the ring, which we had them trade for a large version we had made by covering a foam wreath in gold duct tape.
Then we passed out the next clue:
The ring’s power is too strong and can destroy you if you
hold it for too long. So make sure you
carry it with you throughout the quest, but take turns with it so no one has it
for too long. To find your next clue, go to a place “wear” you can open two doors.
They ran around opening all the doors in our house until we pointed out the quotation marks probably meant that was an important word and that we thought that word was a homophone, then they got it pretty quick, since Corbin's large walk in closet has double doors.
When they arrived at the closet they found the next clue taped outside the door:
You have arrived at the Mines of Moria. To enter in you must first learn the secret
word by decoding the Elvish message.
On his dresser by the closet was a pile of papers with the following:
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And a separate stack of papers with the decoder:
You will need to arm yourselves for the battles ahead. Go to the place where you sit morning, noon
and night. (Hobbits would sit here 7 times a day!)
All the guests immediately ran for the dining room table where they had just eaten, but Corbin knew that we are not formal people and don't even use that table 7 times a year, let alone per day, so he knew to go to the kitchen table where he found the next clue:
The Orc army is coming to attack, you must equip yourselves
with weapons to defend Helm’s Deep.
Everyone select a bow and decorate it with marks to make it your own.
We had made fun little bows and arrows out of Popsicle sticks and dental floss for each kid which they then decorated by coloring with permanent markers.
Once they were done we gave them a handful of q-tip arrows and the next clue:
The Orcs are attacking! Fight off the Orc army by knocking
all of their guys off of the castle walls. You must stand back behind the
counter and work as a team.
We had placed plastic army men on Corbin's castle from his 4th birthday and made the kids line up on the other side of the counter and knock them all down.
Once they got them all down we gave them the next clue:
You try to enter Mordor through the Black Gate, but it is
too heavily guarded, you’ll never make it.
Gollum tells you to go to where you can move down to travel through a
secret passage instead.
Since the kitchen is right next to the basement stairs they figured out where to go pretty quick. As soon as they opened the basement door they saw a mass of leftover, clearanced out Halloween spider webbing with the next clue hanging all over the stairs:
Gollum has tricked you! Now you must make it through
Shelob’s tunnel without touching his web.
They all crawled over and under the webbing until they got to the bottom of the stairs where they next clue was waiting:
Oh no! The power of the ring is too strong and Gollum tries to steal it from you. Toss the ring around to each other and don’t let Gollum get it. If he does, then you are “it” and the previous Gollum is out.
As soon as they were done reading it out loud, Caleb ran in and tried to grab the ring they had been carrying around, starting a big game of monkey in the middle. Once he got it the kid who had thrown it became the new Gollum and the current Gollum sat out, til we slowly eliminated all the players
Once we had our winner we gave them the next clue:
You defeated Gollum, quick travel to where you can become
someone else to destroy the ring by tossing it into Mount Doom.
This clue led them to our costume closet where they found the next clue:
Line up in the order you got out in the last game. Everyone
has two chances to get the ring into Mount Doom. Then go to the end of the line to try again,
but beware if you get too close you will fall in and lose, so don’t cross the
line.
While they were reading we put a piece of tape on the floor for a starting line and then placed a red plastic tub at the other end of the room. Being all cutsie, I wrapped a brown sheet around it so it would look like a volcano with dirt around it and molten lava on the inside. None of the kids seemed to notice or care about my creative genius! :)
After they each successfully threw the ring into the bucket we gave them the last clue:
Well done, you’ve completed your quest and prevented the
evil Saruman from ever getting the ring. Return to the Shire to celebrate with
presents and eat Elevenses.
The kids all went back upstairs where they opened presents while I set out all the cupcakes and changed our centerpiece to say, Elevenses.
Then we sang "Happy Birthday," blew out candles and ate cupcakes. We bought a random collection of Lego Lord of the Ring minifigures on ebay that we decorated the cupcakes with and for party favors we let the kids keep the minifigure that was on their cupcake. With this age group that did require each kid picking a random card with the numbers 1-10 on them to determine cupcake choice order, thus avoiding the otherwise inevitable, "I want blank, blank!" argument that we were sure would have ensued.
(Corbin's eyes look a little a lot creepy, but this is the only group shot I managed to take all morning, so it will have to do.)
Heber, Trey, Colton, Corbin, Adam, Corbin, Silas, Jayden, Eric and Satchel.
1 comment:
So fun! Now I hope we can get one of the kids interested in Lord of the Rings so we can do this same party in a few years. Well done, team Miller! Also, I would have paid good money to watch Caleb pretend to be Gollum. :)
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