6-Foot Tall Party- Celebrate your child growing TALL

Six Foot Party

It’s time for a TALL Party

We have tall genes in our family. We knew our boys would all be taller than six feet as adults. So far, three of them have passed the mark. Our fourth son just turned twelve, so we’ll give him a couple more years.

When our oldest son reached the height of six feet, we decided we should celebrate. We threw a Six-Foot Tall Party for him, inviting our extended family to join in the tall celebration.

Dinner for this party was a lot of fun.  I made a six-foot-long sandwich and a six-foot-long banana split!

I worked at Subway as a teenager, so I felt confident I could make my own sandwich. Years later, when we repeated this party for our younger sons, I just ordered six-foot sandwiches from a grocery store deli. That made it a lot easier, but here’s the instructions if you want to make your own.

6-Foot Dinner

I made enough bread dough for six loaves of bread.  I rolled out 1/4 of the dough into a large rectangle, then cut it in three long strips.  I braided the dough and placed it diagonally on a greased cookie sheet.  I made four of these loaves- each just over 18″ long.  I let them raise until they reached my desired size, then baked them for 24 minutes.  (My regular loaves usually take 30 minutes to bake.)

I made these the day before the party, allowed them to cool, then wrapped them in plastic wrap.

On the night of the party, I lay them side by side on a table.  I trimmed off the ends (except for the two on the far ends) and pushed them together so they appeared to be one six-foot loaf.  I filled them with sandwich fixin’s and it was the freshest, yummiest six footer I’ve ever tasted!

Six Foot Sandwich at the Six Foot Party
Six Foot Sandwich at the Six Foot Party

We made our six-foot-long banana split in a rain gutter.  Plastic rain gutters are very inexpensive at Lowe’s or Home Depot- less than $10.  I scrubbed it clean and it made a perfect 6-foot long bowl for our ice cream.  This is surely against health code, but lots of fun!

6-foot long ice cream sundae at the Tall Party
6-foot long ice cream sundae at the Tall Party

6-Foot Party Activities

When the guests arrived, we measured all of them on our growth chart. We need to know how tall everyone is at a Tall Party.

Growth Chart
How close are you to 6-feet tall?

We included markings for a few famous people, including the tallest man and woman to ever live.  Tallest woman: Zeng Jinlian of China (8′ 1 3/4”)  Tallest man: Robert Wadlow (8′ 11.1”)

Growth Chart

Our first activity was a slam dunk contest in the driveway.  We used a mini trampoline for the contest. Be careful if you decide to do this.  Our little tramp’s legs fell off after a dozen dunks.  Oops! An alternative idea would be to play the basketball game of HORSE but spell SIX instead.

Tall people party dunking competition
Tall people party dunking competition

Next we played volleyball, which is a tall person’s game but is also great for all sizes of people.

The next activity was a game we call “Line Up”.  In this game, you divide your group into two teams.  The person in charge then calls out a sorting category and the teams race to be the first group lined up in the proper order.

Lined up in order by darkest to lightest hair color
Lined up in order of favorite Star Wars character’s height. Chewbacca to R2-D2!

Here are a few examples of sorting categories:  Height (tallest to shortest), Age (oldest to youngest), Hair length, Shoe size, fingernail length, birth date by month- not year (January to December), number of times you’ve been to Disneyland, your favorite Star Wars character by height, your favorite sport alphabetically.  You can think of all kinds of things!  Make the list and give it to the caller. He then begins each line-up race by saying something like, “Think of your favorite food.  What letter does that food begin with? Now line up alphabetically A to Z.)  Fun!

Tall People Game- Describe and guess the famous tall people!
Tall People Game- Describe and guess the famous tall people!

Our last game was one we call the “30 Second Game”.  Again, we divided our group into two teams. Previously, I had printed a long list of famous people (and a few neighbors and friends) who are over 6’0″ tall.  I cut up the list so there was one name on each slip of paper and put the names in a bowl.  The teams took turns having one person give clues to their team.  Their goal was to get their team to guess as many names as they could in thirty seconds.  Teams took turns, trading the clue giver each time, until the bowl was empty. Here’s my list:  Tall People List

Sixlets are a great party favor for a Tall Party
Sixlets are a perfect party favor for a 6-Foot Tall Party

Everyone took home a party favor: a long pack of Sixlets!  Hooray for tall people!

Check out more great party ideas on our website!

Parties for Little Kids Ages 3-7

Parties for Big Kids Ages 8-12

Parties for Teens

Epic Game Show Competition

You are going to love this activity!!

We created this competition for a youth activity for 36 teenagers.  It was a hit!  We have shared it with other groups who have had great success using it for both adult gatherings and large family gatherings.  All we can say is, “You’re welcome!”

We will include all of our clues and questions but you may need to adapt some of them to your own situation. Our youth were all members of the same church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) so we have some songs and trivia questions specific to their faith. It should be easy for you to swap these clues/questions to fit your own needs.

Large Group Game Show Competition

Instructions

Divide your group into teams. You’ll need about 6-9 people per team.

Spread your teams out so they are each sitting in their own semi-circle.  Make sure they are positioned so they can watch the other teams when it’s not their turn.

Divide each team into three sub-groups. Our teams had nine people so we had three groups of three people on each team. If you have less people, some individuals will need to participate in two sub-groups. Each threesome will be assigned to be Artists, Actors or Singers.  For example, my team has seven people: Roy, Joy, Kate, Tate, Jill, Phil, and Bill.  We decide that Roy, Joy and Kate will be our artists. Tate, Jill and Phil will be our actors and Bill, Joy and Tate will be our singers.  Three for each competition.

Artists: The artists receive a card with three clues.  They can look at the clues together and decide who will draw each clue.  The artists all draw on the whiteboard at the same time.  They have 40 seconds for their team to guess all three words.  They get one point for each correct word.  Then, if the guessers can solve the riddle of how their three words are connected or what they have in common, they get a bonus point.

Example Clue: Car, Tree, Elephant / Bonus: They all have trunks.

Go around from team to team, allowing each team to have a turn while the others watch. If you have time, you can have a second round.

Actors:  The three actors work together to act out four group-charades clues.  They may act the clues out in any order. Their team has 80 seconds to solve as many clues as possible.  One point per correct answer.  Have an adult (non-player) hold the clues to the side where the actors can see the clues, but their team cannot.

Example Clue Card:  Zoo, Olympics, Trick or Treating, Jonah & the Whale

Go around from team to team, allowing each team to have a turn while the others watch. If you have time, you can play a second round.

Singers:  The game is “Name That Tune”. The singers have 60 seconds to name as many songs as they can on their list.  Each singer must hum/da-de-da two songs on the list.  No words allowed.  Again, have a non-player hold the clues to the side where the singers can see the clues, but their team cannot. The songs can be sung in any order. One point for every correct answer.

Example Clue Card:

  • Amazing Grace (Hymn)
  • Piano Man (Billy Joel)
  • Let It Go (Frozen)
  • Rewrite the Stars (Greatest Showman)
  • Ring of Fire (Jonny Cash)
  • Shake It Off (Taylor Swift)

Go around from team to team, allowing each team to have a turn while the others watch.

College Bowl: The final game is a trivia showdown. Everyone stays with their team in their own semi-circle.  Everyone stands up.  The host circles the room, going from team to team asking trivia questions.  One person from the team must answer the question.  The team can discuss who will answer the question after they hear it.  (Example: Finn says he knows this one, but Kate does too.  The team decides to let Kate take this one and save Finn for another category.  Maybe no one knows the answer.  Allie volunteers to take a guess and use up her turn.)  Once an answer is given, that person must sit down.  Each person only gets to answer once.  Right or wrong, they sit down after they answer.  Right answers receive one point.  As the game progresses, each team has fewer and fewer players to answer.  The last person standing must answer the last question.   No questions is ever repeated.  You simply get it or you don’t—no stealing. A time limit is usually not necessary, but you could put a 20 second clock on each answer if it seems necessary.  It is important that every team have an equal number of players in the College Bowl. If a team has less, one of their players should be randomly chosen to answer two questions.

Note to Host:  Write/Print the clues on individual cards as shown below for the artist, actors, and singers.  Do not print the answer to the riddles on the artist cards. The College Bowl can be printed as-is for the host to give a clue in each category for each team member.  We had 9 people on four teams (36 people), so we needed 36 total questions– 4 questions from 9 categories. Adapt as needed for your group.  My list has many more questions in case your group is larger than ours.

Print our clues/questions here:   Large Group Game Show Competition

 

Box Bash

My son wanted a Box Party for his 12th birthday.  What is a Box Party, you ask?  I didn’t know either– but we had one!  It was one of the simplest parties we’ve ever had and also one of the most fun.  It was especially great because we had a large group of children ages 5-74 and they all liked it (kindergartners and grandpas included).  We had planned to have this party in our backyard, but it rained so we moved our boxes to our church gymnasium.  This would never have worked inside our house.

Preparation
We started collecting boxes a month before the party.  We asked a few neighbors and aunts to call us if they were throwing out any boxes.  I stopped at a local furniture store and asked for large boxes. We also asked the guests to each bring two shoe boxes.  Most of them did.  After the party, we took them all to a recycling center.
Boxes
Invitation
We pasted the invitations on pieces of torn-up cereal boxes.  Classy, eh?

Box Party Invitation

Boxtacular Activities

Steal the Box
As the guests arrived, we assigned them a team and number to play “Steal the Box”, which was just Steal the Bacon with a small box.

Steal the box game

Teams
After the first game, we divided the group into two teams- the mustaches vs. the goatees.  We drew facial hair on all the kids with a washable marker.  Since our son was turning twelve (becoming a man in some cultures), we thought it fitting to throw in a little facial hair.
Facial hair

Box Relays

Our two teams competed in several box-themed relays.

Pass the Box
The teams sat in a line.  Then they were challenged to pass a box using only their feet from one end of their line to the other and back again.
Pass the Box

Box Push
The guests were required to push (or hit with their hands) a box across the gym and back.  No kicking allowed!

Box Push

Coffin Race
Each team used a large box as a coffin and carried three of their teammates (one at a time) halfway across the gym and back.  This was a bit dangerous- as the boxes started falling apart, but luckily no one was injured.

Coffin Race

Kleenex Pull
I bought two of the smallest boxes of Kleenexes I could find (60 tissues).  The teams stood behind a line about 20 feet from a table with the Kleenex boxes.  They had to take turns running to the boxes, pulling out one tissue, then running back to tag the next person.  I should have taken out half of the tissues because this took a long time.  If they pulled out more than one tissue, they had to spin around five times for each extra tissue before they could run back to their team. I think 12-15 tissues in the box would be about right.

Kleenex Pull

Box Skits
I put a bunch of random costumes and props in four boxes.  Each box was different.  We split each team in two so we would have four groups.  They were given fifteen minutes to make up a skit.  Then they performed them for the group. This might be a hard activity for smaller kids, but it was perfect for my pre-teen group.

Skits in a box

Box Battle
This was my favorite part of the party.  Each team built a fortress of boxes, then we had a battle with Nerf guns and small playground balls.  The kids were so creative.  They had all kinds of hiding places in their forts and made lots of cool shields to protect themselves. Here’s a photo of one such shield:

Box Shield

Box Battle

Box Soccer
We actually played this game in the middle of the party– but it should have been our last event.  The kids destroyed a lot of the boxes during this game.  We required every player to wear one box as a shoe while they played a game of soccer.  The soccer ball was a softer playground ball, but the boxes had to be duct taped to the kids’ feet to stay on.  This was really fun but required a lot of duct tape.  Here’s a photo of the box shoes:

Box shoes

 

box soccer

Birthday Treats
We served ice cream sundaes for our party treat. How easy is that? If you want to be more creative, I’m sure you could find some boxed desserts.

birthday boy