Boogers on the Wall

My 7-year-old son is really interested in the military, particularly the army. So he wanted to have a miniature boot camp/drill for his birthday party a couple of weeks ago.

I don’t know the first thing about military training, but we sat down as a family and came up with a few fun drills and games to use for the party.

My husband served as sergeant and whipped all the boys into shape. I think they all had a great time.

It was one of the easiest and most fun birthday parties I have ever helped with.

We had such a good time, I decided to share with all of you what we did.

As the boys were getting to the party we had them “enlist.” They signed a paper saying that they would obey and train to the best of their ability until they became certified soldiers.

I painted their faces in camouflage colors.

Then they were able to pick up their “gear bag” which included a toy airplane, mini army notebooks, pencil, grenade launcher, mini American flag and more.

After grabbing their gear, they ready for training.

They started with basic marching and army crawl technique practice. Then they moved on to grenade launching. They had to practice grabbing “grenades” (grenade shaped water balloons) and launching them at two ring-of-fire targets on our front lawn. I’m pretty sure they loved doing this.

Then it was on to shelter set up. They had to pop up our small play tent.

After that they learned how to dress wounds. We played a wounded warrior game where they drew a card that listed an injury. They had 15 seconds to dress that wound. It was a riot to watch. Especially when someone drew the two-broken-arms card. (My boys helped me come up with the wound ideas).

Lastly they took a turn at target practice. They had to chuck grenades at several tin cans on our ladder and see how many knocked over. Even in close range this was harder than the boys thought. But, boys will be boys. They loved throwing water balloons at the side of my house.

At that point they had completed their basic training. To test all of their skills, we had them go through a boot camp obstacle course. During the course they had to crawl through a tube, set up a tent, army crawl under some “wires,” climb through a mine field, grab a flag, balance across a beam then climb to the top of our play fort and launch a grenade at a target on our back fence. If they hit a “mine” (grenade water balloon) during any part of the course they were “fatally wounded” and had to start over.

It was awesome.

To wrap up the party we ended with army-style cupcakes and ice cream served in mess kits. Then the boys had army free time where they could do whatever they wanted while we waited for all of the parents to pick up their kids.

Like I said this was one of the easiest parties we have done at our house and it was so much fun. I highly recommend it!