Ideas For Geocaching Birthday Party?!

[+kklems]

Our family geocaches together and my oldest son will be 7. We have been talking about having a birthday party and incorporating geocaching into his party. Any suggestions on how to do this with probably about 10 to 12 children?

 

A search of the forums didn't bring up anything on this topic. (at least for 5 pages)

[nobby.nobbs]

you want more than a treasure hunt and picnic? what more would a 7 year old want to do?

 

find local park. wood etc either with a cache already there or place one. picnic food, bbq cake and treasure hunt to find . heck i'd be happy and i'm well past 7!!

[+kklems]

you want more than a treasure hunt and picnic? what more would a 7 year old want to do?

 

find local park. wood etc either with a cache already there or place one. picnic food, bbq cake and treasure hunt to find . heck i'd be happy and i'm well past 7!!

 

Just trying to think how to do it in a more organized fashion and I was planning maybe a couple of caches that I was sure was filled with good party swag. Also hadn't decided to go gps route (trying to get enough gpsr could be a challenge) or just directions or something else. The more ideas I hear the better I can plan this. (not until July)

 

Plus my kids are pretty darn good at caching and most if not all of his friends have never done any. The two oldest boys (6 and 5 currently) can carry a gps and follow it to the area once we get to about 1000 ft, the oldest can read a compass (better than daddy sometimes) and they all try to find the cache before it gets pulled out of hiding. Whereas the other kids might get frustrated or not get the concept. (just want to make it fun for all involved and do something different)

[+Katerbug]

It would be really cute if the party was pirate themed and the cache was a fake treasure chest with party favors inside.

[magellan315]

You might want to try using letterboxing for this. letterboxing requires the person looking for it to find the hidden box by following a written description instead of a GPS.

 

Letterboxing

[+NotNutts]

It would be really cute if the party was pirate themed and the cache was a fake treasure chest with party favors inside.

Hide all his presents in the woods, too.

[Mushtang]

It would be really cute if the party was pirate themed and the cache was a fake treasure chest with party favors inside.

Hide all his presents in the woods, too.

 

And hide the cake, the ballons, the drinks, and the clown too. Be sure to leave air holes for the clown though, or the FTF might be in therapy for a while.

[nobby.nobbs]

split them into two teams and set them a series of micros to find with clues as to the final spot.

 

two sets of micros then one final

. race to see who gets there first.

 

sorry wasn't trying to be funny earlier. i'm just a very old big kid who'd happily do the picnic and cache idea well ok with a trip to the pub as well!!

[+Cache us Clay]

Have a few kids find a hiding place and set a waypoint. They then give the GPS unit to another group to find the waypoint that was marked. I'd bet a group of 7 year old kids could do that for a while without getting bored.

[+TeamGuisinger]

Here's something that my Mom did for us at our birthday parties. Not sure how big you want to get or this may get difficult. For 7 year olds, you could probably pull it off on a small scale. It was always quite exciting for us. Hide a treasure for each child. Attach a different colored piece of yarn to each one. Wind the yarn all through the house/woods/yard. Have them back track and weave in and out of other people's yarn. Each child picks a color and follows the yarn all over to find their treasure. This would elimate the need for gps usage and probably make it easier on you.

 

Another option is hiding several caches and doing a group hunt with a gps. I would try to place them where there are lots of hiding spots so it would take a while and everyone could help in the search.

 

That party supply catalog that I know everyone has heard about has great pirate items including a pre-packed treasure chest.

[nobby.nobbs]

why are we wasting these ideas on kids? i can't wait for someone to do the adult party!!!

[Dan_the_Hutt]

I started thinking about this as well. It seems that the greatest flexibility in setup is outside of gc.com unless you wanted to leave the caches for others to find. For the map, I seem to recall a method involving lemon juice, paper, and heat to create the brown textured/aged look of an old treasure map. There are probably wallpaper textures that can be downloaded too (ex: The Gold Bug) Assuming you don't have GPS's for every child or group, ideally the map has very identifiable landmarks and the caches are not too far off given you are responsible for all of these kids at the party. The kids would count of "steps" from landmarks or trail markers to find the "treasure". You probably will want to setup all of the final locations in advance and mark the spots for the day you arrive at the park and hide the party loot bags.

[Enchanted Blue Heron]

I just put together an adult birthday party for a friend in March. She had received a GPS for Christmas, but hadn't been out to use it or learn to use it. I set it up as a multi-cache experience in the morning with brunch served afterwards. She brought both her boys to help with the hunt and I invited another geocacher. So between 1 experienced geocacher with his GPS, her GPS, and my GPS they hunted in the woods for clues and mini-treasures. Her Birthday present was the final cache. I served a wonderful breakfast Straka, bacon, juice, and fruit.

 

Prizes used in the caches included:

 

T-shirts

non-activated Travel Bugs (so they can create their own profiles & continue caching on their own)

pocket calculators from the Dollar Store

party hats

noisemakers

 

They all had a blast! Her youngest boy asked me on THAT DAY to do a party for him this summer! I will be very happy too.

 

For his party I am already planning to have several multi-caches setup. Depending on how many kids and adults they will be split into teams of up to 5 kids. Each team will have their own multi-cache to complete. It seemed to me the boys got the hang of the GPS rather easily.