So you've got young boys who love Pokemon and their birthday is fast approaching? Never fear, help is here. Both of my young sons love Pokemon, they are ages 6 and 9. What is Pokemon you say? Pokemon means "Pocket Monster" in Japanese. The crazy characters evolve into different characters and they use pokemon moves to "fight" each other causing "damage". This craze has originated in Japan, but is highly popular here in the US. The Pokemon characters all have an HP number, how much the Pokemon is worth and the higher HP cards are highly coveted young boys. Anyway, back to your party issue. I just threw a great Pokemon party for my son's 9th birthday. He loved it and his friends had a blast. Below are some great ideas for you and they are EASY and INEXPENSIVE to do. I sat down one night and came up with some games that I could easily make the supplies for and they would be fun to play. Below is a summary list of the games we came up with and read on to get the details of each one. Keep in mind, these are EASY, FUN and INEXPENSIVE and I will tell you exactly how I did it and what you need:
o Pass the Pokeball
o Pin the Tail on Pikachu
o Pokemon Balloon Dart Throw
o Pokemon Master Tracking
o Gliscor Bean Bag Score
1. Pass the Pokeball If you are remotely familiar with Pokemon, you will know about pokeballs. To play this game, I went to a craft store and purchased a LARGE Styrofoam ball, they seem to range in price from to . I also bought some red washable craft paint while I was at the craft store. Paint half the ball with the red craft paint, let it dry, then use black electrical tape to tape around the circumference of the ball right where the white Styrofoam joins up with the red paint. This made the PERFECT pokeball. Quick and easy and inexpensive. Then we had a small keyboard (cheap one) that could be automatically set to play music. If you don't have a keyboard, use anything that can make music, cd player, musical instrument, drum set, guitar, anything that plays music and can be stopped and started. Have all the boys sit in a circle and they have to hand the pokeball to each other in a circular fashion. They cannot throw the ball. I would then start the music on the keyboard and close my eyes and stop it after 20 to 30 seconds. I closed my eyes, so I wouldn't know who was going to be holding the ball when the music stopped. Whoever is holding the ball when the music stops is out, then play again until there is only 1 player left. Give the player who is left a party prize.
Supplies recap:
i. Large Styrofoam ball
ii. Red craft paint
iii. Electrical tape
2. Pin the Tail on Pikachu - Pikachu is one of the main pokemon characters and if your kids like Pokemon they like Pikachu. For this game, I found a good picture of Pikachu. I used a picture out of the Pokemon Handbook that we have, but if you don't have one of those, use a pokemon card of Pikachu, or print a picture of Pikachu at pokemon.com. I bought a package of 10 white posterboards at a discount store. Look at the picture and draw a large picture of Pikachu to cover most of the posterboard (1 sheet). Don't draw his tail. Use a separate posterboard to draw enough Pikachu tails (shaped like a lightning bolt) for each party guest to have one. After I drew the Pikachu and then drew the tails, I had my kids color the Pikachu and tails, they loved helping. Cut out the Pikachu tails. I had an old cork board that I was able to mount this Pin the Tail on the Pikachu game onto so it had a sturdy back and could be hung up outside. Put the name of each party guest on one of the tails and right before they play, add a single strip of double sided tape. When you are ready to play this, use a bandana to cover the eyes of your party guests, spin them around in a circle twice and direct them towards the Pikachu. Don't allow them to feel their way around, wherever they touch the Pikachu they must put the tail on there, otherwise the kids who go last will be able to tell where to put the tails by feeling where the other kids tails are pinned. Give a prize to the party guest who gets Pikachu's tail closest to the right spot.
Supplies recap:
i. Picture of Pikachu
ii. Large white posterboard for drawing picture of Pikachu
iii. Large white posterboard for drawing multiple Pikachu tails only
iv. Double sided tape
v. Bandana
3. Pokemon Balloon Dart Throw - Kids love to pop balloons and throw darts, so put these two things together in a fun and easy activity. The night before the party I bought 50 balloons at a party store. Each Pokemon character has an HP value, or a points value. For example, Pikachu might be 60 HP, Shadowlugia 300 HP, etc... You can find the names of many Pokemon characters in a Pokemon handbook or you can find them online at Pokemon.com. Take some plain white paper and cut it into strips that are about 1 inch high by 3 inches long. Write the name of a different Pokemon and their HP Number on the strips. We had 6 boys at the party and I blew up 45 balloons. For example, you might write Ryperior 90 HP on a slip. Make each slip of paper with a different character and add the HP number (use multiples of 10 only for the HP values). We used each character name only once but reused the HP 50, HP60, HP70, HP80, HP90, etc... However we only had 1 character (Shadowlugia) that had the highest HP of HP300, no other card had the HP300 on it. Fold the slips of paper small and poke it inside the balloon prior to blowing up the balloon. I then used an air compressor to blow up the balloons quickly and tie them in a knot. You will see the little slips of paper inside. I stored the balloons overnight in large trash bags and they stayed aired up fine. I purchased a set of 6 darts at a sports store to use for this game. If you have a large cork board, attach the balloons with push pins to the cork board. Have the party guests stand back about 8 feet and throw 2 darts a piece and try to pop the balloons (like a traditional carnival game). If they pop a balloon have them gather up and keep the slip of paper with the Pokemon character on it and the HP number (see the next Pokemon Master tracking as to what to do with the slips of paper and keeping track of the HP numbers). They loved to pop these balloons and they loved finding the slips of paper to find out which Pokemon character they had and what was the HP number. We played several rounds of this game!
Supplies recap:
i. Bunch of balloons (have at least 40 or more)
ii. Plain white paper
iii. Names of Pokemon characters and made up HP numbers (I did not take the time to look up each characters real HP number, that is too much work, just put down any HP number you want, but only have one character with the highest HP
iv. Package of 6 darts (about .50)
4. Pokemon Master tracking - There is no doubt your kids are familiar with Ash Ketchum if they like Pokemon, he is a Pokemon master. In order to make it fun and to get the boys to want to get the slips of paper I put inside the balloons, I created a Pokemon Master chart to track each party guests characters and HP values. I used a large white posterboard and wrote Pokemon Masters at the top and used some Pokemon stickers to decorate with. You can buy Pokemon stickers, or use sticker paper in your printer and just print some Pokemon cards or Pokemon characters from the internet. I then divided (using a black market) the posterboard into how many party guests I have a made a large square for each of them. As the boys gathered the Pokemon character slips from popping the balloons, I had another adult log in their Pokemon characters and their associated HP Values onto the Pokemon Master chart. I just had it taped to my back door and the boys loved coming over to see what their Pokemon scores were. I gave a prizes for the highest HP sum in each round of darts. One child may pop a balloon with the Pokemon character slip of paper that said Metagross 90 HP and his second pop may have been Snover 60 HP, we recorded these both onto his square on the Pokemon Master tracking posterboard and his total HP for the round was 150 HP. If he had the highest score that round, he got a prize. I let the boys throw 2 darts a piece for each turn. I also gave a prize for the lowest HP score, so noone felt left out. Have an adult record the names and HP numbers to keep it moving. At the end of all the balloon popping I gave a prize to party guest who found the Shadowlugia 300 HP slip of paper, as it was our highest HP value "card".
Supplies recap:
i. Large white poster board
ii. Sharpie Marker
iii. Pokemon stickers to decorate the tracking poster with
5. Gliscor Bean Bag Score - If you have any type of existing bean bag toss game at your home, commandeer it for this game. We had a bean bag toss game that had 6 small bean bags. If you don't have one, you can make bean bags easily out of old socks and uncooked beans, just tie the socks in a knot after putting in the uncooked beans, PERFECT!. I used another white poster board to draw a Pokemon character on. We chose Glico for his shape as it would be good to toss the bean bags into his belly! I used the Gliscor Pokemon card to look at to draw the character on a large white poster board, then we colored with crayons based on how the character looks on the card. Then I lined up the existing bean bag game hole and cut a similar hole in the character's belly and taped the two together. If you don't have a bean bag game you can attach your poster board to, you can cut a hole in an old piece of plywood, or tape your posterboard Pokemon character with the hole in it to a laundry basket, anything that will basically catch the bean bags. You want the bean bag catch place to be tilted up slightly at the top, so the game is doable for the boys. Have the boys throw the bean bags from about 12-15 feet back and try to get a Gliscor score!!! Any Pokemon character will work for this game, just cut a hole about 6 inches wide in the posterboard wherever you are wanting the bean bags to go through. They played this a lot and several of them scored by getting a bean bag in the hole of Gliscor's tummy! I gave prizes to the ones who scored in the hole, if noone got it in the hole, I gave a prize each round for the party guest with the bean bag closest to the hole. You can knock off the bean bags of other players! They loved this competition.
Supplies recap:
i. Existing Bean Bag toss game if you have one
ii. If not, plywood with hole, or laundry basket and something to hold the board or basket on an angle with the top tilted up off the ground a bit to make the game doable for the boys
iii. White poster board
iv. Picture of desired Pokemon character
v. Crayons/markets
vi. Bean bags (existing or home made)
The boys at this party were between the ages of 6 and 9 and they absolutely loved playing these game. We also ordered a Pokemon cake from a local supermarket bakery and it looked awesome. I had also ordered Pokemon birthday theme plates, cups and napkins and a tablecloth. It was all very easy and looked great.
PRIZES
For prizes, I went to several of the dollar stores and discount stores and bought cheap glow sticks, light up pens, blow up baseballs and footballs, crazy bounce balls, sound makers that make poot sounds (they loved those!), glow in the dark aliens, stretchy snakes, packages of gummy worms. I decided which prizes to give and I put a sign on the prize bowl that said "Momma's prize bowl, hands off please!" That way they couldn't pick through the goodies that were prizes, they did trade a few prizes between each other. I recommend looking for fun cheap items that are about .00 or less, stay away from the truly junky toys that break immediately or noone in their right mind would want, that will just waste your money.
GOODY BAGS
For goody bags, I added candy like individual starburst, small M&M's packages, and gummies. I also found small silver alien stuffed toys (.00 a piece) and I had ordered Pokemon wrist sweat bands from an online party supply, these were very cool! Last but not least, I bought two 10 card each packs of Pokemon cards and divided those up so each goody bag got 3 Pokemon cards in it as well. I divided them up so not all the higher HP cards were in a single goody bag, spread around the fun! They loved these cards in their goody bags and it was an absolute blast of a party. Don't let this sound hard, I did all of this listed above plus I blew up 100 water balloons for use in the water balloon launcher just by doing a little bit in the evenings starting about 1 week before the party. You can do this too and give your son the best Pokemon party ever! I hope these ideas are useful to you, they really are EASY to do, low cost and fun, your party goers will love it!
