Jedi Training Academy - Use the Force...to create a Star Wars Themed Birthday Party!

As mentioned in my earlier post about the Yoda cake...I mentioned that we held a Jedi Training Academy party for my son's 6th birthday. 

I've had some questions about what we did, and I've tried to compile it all for you.

Jedi Training Academy...what is this?  Well, we weren't all that sure, but we did a lot of internet research and ended up basing it off of some videos we found about this on YouTube and the actual trainings they do at Disney World.

We made Jedi tunics/belts for each of the kids out of felt and they got one as soon as they got to our house.
We watched a bit of "The Clone Wars" until all the kids got there.  Then I, as Jedi Master Mommy, totally embarrassed my son by talking about what it means to be a Jedi, using the force, their behavior expectations for the day, yadda yadda.

Then we moved to the garage for our training exercises.  (I would have prefered to have the children outside, but the weather did not cooperate). 

We broke the kids into two teams, and their exercise was the "Save the Princess".  We had placed pictures of Princess Leia inside a couple of balloons and the kids had to to a balloon pop relay by busting the balloons on chairs and seeing if their was a picture inside of it.  Note of caution -- 6-7 year olds had a hard time popping large balloons.  Sometimes the Master would secretely help them.

Then we practiced 'using the force' by trying to destroy a Darth Vader pinata.  If I would have had time, I would have made a Death Star one, but I opted to go for the time saving, already made version from the party store.

I think we might have also played "Master Says" (basically Simon Says).

Then, we went back inside and watched some light saber duels on DVD.  This allowed us to prep for the next scene....

We brought the children to the garage, where then Darth Vader (my fiance) appeared and try to sway the children to the Dark Side.  He then challenged the birthday boy to a duel to which Darth lost and the good side prevailed.  At some point all the kids attacked Darth Vader and then we did a group picture.

We then went inside for ice cream and cake and afterwards the kids had free play and did Star Wars coloring sheets until their parents came to get them.

We gave each kid a light saber (from the $1 store) as they were leaving.  Their parents were thrilled.  :-)  Initially we were going to give them to the kids earlier and do exercises with them, but when we had over 18 kids coming, we thought for our sanity -- it would be smarter to skip that portion of the party.

There's a bunch of fun food ideas on this blog, and a section were you can download and print off stuff for kids:
http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/category/food/
Happy planning!! May the force be with you!