Raceway Birthday

by Andrea Renner
(Columbus Grove, OH)

My 3-year-old son loves race cars (Lightening McQueen) so we decided to have a racing party. We have a lot of kids in our family but this party would go great with any number of kids at any age (we had 10 and 12 year olds participating). First, when inviting everyone we asked that they bring their child?s bike or trike. We decided to make a relay race.

For the races, we used everyday items and had it setup as so: (FYI?we had a treat box with little candies and trinkets that each racer chose from after each race?everyone is a winner)

1. We started with the old fashioned egg race. Each child received a plastic spoon and an egg?.remember we grouped kids by age and they raced against their age group to keep it fair. They race to the line we had set and back??.THEN in order for no one to be upset with the winner, each child got to break their egg against the tree to celebrate the race!

2. The 3 legged race. This was the best because everyone had a sibling and we grouped them together. Tied their legs together with trash bags and blew the whistle?..so funny to watch those siblings TRY to work together! The group that officially won had to do a victory lap while holding hands!

3. For the grand finale we had setup an obstacle course: We used hula hoops (in place of tire run) which each child had to hop from one hoop to the next-4 total hoops. Then we had blown up balloons and stacked into a tied net laundry bag. Each child had to get a balloon between their knees (little ones carried them) and walk it to the next basket and put it in. Next was the pumpkins roll. We had a small incline with wood that each child had to roll the pumpkin up. Finally we had the bikes. Each child had to grab their bike and ride around the cones (placed erratically through the course until the finish line. (Older kids had to use the trikes for a little challenge!)

For prizes: From the grand final, I found little trophies at my local Wal-Mart and each child got their own trophy with treats inside.

For food: We had the typical raceway foods: hot dogs, cheese fries, chips, dips and for the cake we had of course, Lightening McQueen, but each child also got a gold-medallion ribbon necklace (Wal-Mart) with their cake for participating in the races.

Decorations consisted of the typical race colors with checkered flags etc.?all made easily from construction paper.

For the rest of the party the kids played back and fourth through the relay etc and had a blast.