This is a can’t miss fairy tale birthday party

A few years ago Princess opted for a questing party.  We’ve done a few of these with the kids, and they are always a big hit.  This time we had a fairy tale birthday party because Princess was huge into fairy tales at the time. The kids headed from riddle to riddle until finally they got the prize.

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Set up: write the riddles and figure out each location

We had six riddles, and while most didn’t require much set-up, some did.  We used pretty scrapbook paper to write the notes on, but it could just as easily have been plain copy paper.

 

First clue: Hansel and Gretel

In Forest Grimm, these siblings came upon the House of Sweets. Seek the witch’s den to find the next clue. But beware the toffee floor, lest you stay there forever.

The kids had to work together to cross the toffee and reach the clue hanging far above them on the ceiling.  The first challenge was to get from platform to platform without touching the ground.

We used leftover squares from a now defunct Candyland Move game (I don’t even know if that’s the real name, we pretty much only ever used it for things like this, and to learn colors, much more fun than playing the game).  Since that doesn’t exist anymore you can get fun foam sheets to make the safe rocks to stand on.

At the end were two wooden platforms about two feet apart from each other, and they had to work together to get the clue off of the rope hanging from the ceiling.

Because you know the ground is LAVA!

Oh wait, toffee floor, so sticky, that’s right super sticky.

 

Second Clue: The high tower of Rapunzel

Upon a high tower without door or stairs, I whiled away my days. With only a brush and a song to pass my time. Seek me where I passed my time.

Far up in a tower awaits a fair maiden trapped by an evil witch.  She also just happens to have really long hair that she can use to grab that basket below the balcony.  Can you carefully move the hook over and guess the riddle?

We made the “rope” by braiding like 30 feet of yellow yarn* and bending some jewelry gauge wire* (from another project) into a hook.

 

At the bottom was a basket with a nice woven handle sticking up*, rather like an Easter basket with the clue all wrapped up.

Now this works because we have an outside balcony, but if you have a two-story house and a half wall you can still do this clue fairly easily.

Otherwise, you could have the child stand on a chair and try to hook the basket that way.

Third clue: The Little Mermaid

In a room of darkness wherein sometimes visions both fanciful and frightening do dance upon the walls.Therein lies a sea of pink, among the waves a clue.

The next clue was under the sea.  A sea of balloons that is, and they braved the scary sea and found the clue in a balloon.  They had to keep popping balloons until they found all of the clue, for it had been torn into pieces by a terrible monster known as Daddy.

At first the kids were a little tentative about popping balloons, but eventually, they got into popping the balloons.

 

 

Fourth Clue: Sleeping Beauty and The Princess and the Pea

I have held the spindle’s victim and the most sensitive princess.  Surrounded by the tales of yore.  Seek me where the pea offended.

I’ll be honest, I might have these clues out of order, so we’ll just pretend this is the order it was all in.  This was hidden under a pillow in our guest bedroom.  If you don’t have a guest bedroom, you could just as easily put it in the birthday child’s room under a pillow, or under a doll’s bed.  Either way, this was probably one of the easier clues to find.  Oh the tales of yore in our clue is because the guest bedroom used to be the nursery and has a fairy tale theme painted on the walls.

 

Fifth Clue: Beauty and the Beast

I rest in Belle’s favorite place.  There find me in my own tale.

Head to the library!  Which in our house at that time was an actual library with all 10 bookshelves in there.  We’ve since divided this into a Mom library and a Dad library…… Admittedly this could be very easy, but since I happen to have 20 different Beauty and the Beast books, it took some time to find just the right copy.

 

Final Fairy Tale themed clue

At a portal buried in oak, begins the final test of faith and friendship. Seek me where thy guests were first greeted.

This clue doesn’t tie in as well to a specific fairy tale, but the overall feel of it works for the fairy tale theme.  After they’d all gone upstairs, I had Jeff run downstairs and tape out the streamer path* for one person to be led through blindfolded.

In the end, the scavenger hunt led to the cake and ice cream.  It was a huge hit with everyone.

A few more birthday party ideas

• Hero Quest birthday party
• Princess tea party
• Dr. Seuss birthday party
• Splash War Party