A spy party is a great one for boys and girls alike…
Send Spy Party Invitations with a Poem:
“Detective, spy… Private eye
Can you figure out the clue?
Mystery… Come and see
A birthday party for – guess who?”
Spy Party Dress Code
- Ask Party goers to dress in black and wear sunglasses.
- Call everyone by his/her code number (use the last 4 digits of the child’s phone number)
- Come up with an Organization name… “Robert International Spy School” (“RISS”)
- “Robert Bureau of Investigation” (“RBI”) or the “R-7” (If Robbie is turning 7)
Spy Party Invitations
- Try writing the invitations backward (read with a mirror).
- The birthday child could deliver the invites door-to-door (ring the bell then run and hide) so receiving the invite is more mysterious.
- Come up with an Organization name… “Robert International Spy School” (“RISS”) “Robert Bureau of Investigation” (“RBI”) or “R-7” (If Robbie is turning 7)
Spy Party Decorations
- Add chalked body outlines outside (on pavement/sidewalk) for an interesting touch
- Tape maps and different country flags to the wall.
- Print out the “foot prints” and stick them to the walls/ceiling with painter’s tape.
Bomb Prop
- A “bomb” can be made out of a piece of plasticine with old wires sticking out of it and bits and pieces of metal stuck to the plasticine, then put in a box, stick in a flashlight, bike light, egg timer… anything.
- Have the aim of your treasure hunt be finding the secret “diffuse the bomb” directions (use an oven timer/ alarm clock/ ipod to count down the time).
Believe it or not the CIA has a kid’s page on their website that has Games (!)
Spy Academy
- Put your guests through a Series of “Tests” to see if they are “Spy Material”
- Physical tests (a-Obstacle course, b-relay races, c-balancing contests… )
- Fingerprinting tests – One way to do this is make a fingerprint on a smooth surface and then lightly brush on graphite dust (rub a pencil against sandpaper to create some graphite dust). Then lift the print with some scotch tape and place the tape on a piece of card.
- Observation tests – Show a set of objects… then cover them and remove an object, then have the “spies” figure out which item was removed
- Have a volunteer (parent/ neighbor/friend) burst into the room and “steal” something and ask the surprised children try to give correct eyewitness accounts (you could put them into 2 teams and the teams could battle it out)
- Decoding games – try close up pictures of objects printed on regular paper… or “eyeball bender” also write things out in “code” and have the children translate them).
Treasure Hunt
- Hunts are great fun for the children – Find the “stolen” loot bags/cake/pinata/formula/bomb diffusing instructions
- Make Invisible Ink (write in lemon juice or milk then warm the note and reveal it by placing over a warm toaster/candle… carefully)
- Scramble the letters (if the first and last letter are not changed it is quite easy to unscramble… For example: if the fsrit and last lteter aer not canhegd it si qitue esay ot usnrcmalbe..
Codes
- Cipher (make/use a cipher wheel)
- Rhyming clues “Stop to think… You’ll find it under the __________” (sink)
- Eyeball benders (extreme close-up photographs of things)
- Pig pen Cipher
- Use another language as code – Russian is a good one.
- Morse Code
- Code Stick/Scytale code (cut a long narrow strip of paper and wind it around a specific stick/broom handle then write the message across the wound paper and then unwind… revealing a long strip of paper with seemingly random numbers on it!)
- Write Backwards (use Mirror to decipher)
- Use Braille
- Put clues into ASL (American Sign Language) pictures
- Block Code
- Reverse Alphabet (A=Z, B=Y… and so on… )
- Try a semaphore (Read every 2nd or 3rd, 4th, 5th letter)
Spy Party Food
- An easy cake to make for a spy party is a “bomb cake” (round ball pan) iced black with a black licorice “fuse”.
- Serve juice and soda concoctions that are “Shaken not stirred” (Shirley temple style with cherries and lemon twists and paper umbrellas)
- Have food taste tests
- Fortune cookies can have new messages put into them (just replace the old messages carefully with tweezers)