How to Train Your Dragon Party

We have birthday parties every second year. They are fun, generally have a theme but also have a budget. Last birthday Hayden had a Lego party and he actually thought that it would be a great idea to do again. Luckily I talked him into (with no trouble at all) to having a How to Train Your Dragon Party.

With the release of How to Train Your Dragon 2 at the cinema over the school holidays it was great timing. We went and saw the film and I gathered some ideas. It was also relevant because you know as many times as Hayden has said to Mikala, “Oh no, Not the Frozen movie again!”, she has said back,”Oh no not Dragons again!” He is a big fan of the Riders of Berk and the other series which have been on the TV.

All the Party details

The party was held on the Hill Paddock out at the farm. We had a bonfire set up and luckily after moving the day had a glorious day.

Invites

I grabbed a picture off the How to Train Your Dragon 2 website. They have lots of great downloads there for non-commercial use. I Also found a font I like called Vikings and downloaded that. I used PicMonkey to do the design. If you haven’t used it before it is one of my favourites. I have the paid version.

Party Decorations

We grabbed a few pallets lying around the sheds and set them up to represent little ‘areas’. One we ended up using for the BBQ and the other for the food table. Hayden also scouted out some Ram horns and skulls. (Country kids out here)

We made a bonfire and with sticks we made a Dragon Arena. This is where the games started and finished and where the all important training took place.

I painted a box and an old piece of tin to help people with directions to make it into the paddock and up the firebreak safely.

The rest of the decorations just included the gorgeous setting – bush and wide open paddock.

Party Food

Simple food was also eaten since we were in a paddock. Lollies, Popcorn (Dragon Puffs), Corn Chips (Dragon Scales), A large fruit platter and Sausages in a bun with onion, cheese and a choice of sauces. We had a platter of salami, cheese and Dip for the adults that were enjoying the time catching up around the bonfire.

Lastly we had Marshmallows – which we roasted under careful supervision in the bonfire. I like mine a little burnt on the outside and gooey in the middle. I had a few kids helping to cook me some.

Party Games

Most of the time the children were happy to just play in the bush and explore the paddock. The games that we played were leading up to graduating as a Dragon Trainer. I also made these from PicMonkey and Movie pictures downloaded.

1. Viking Names – we all received our viking names and started practising only calling each other by our first Viking name – there were names like Stinky, Slobber, Haggard, and Thug.

2. Dragon Egg Treasure Hunt – Using foam eggs, paint and glitter I made some Dragon Eggs and hid them in different patches of bush in the paddock. Each piece of bush was representing another Island around the Island of Berk. I sent them off in teams to find only their colour egg. Took 10 minutes. Then once they were all in I told them they would get extra points if they found another teams eggs. They were extra keen to do this.

3. Sheep Memory – using the arena the teams had to play a game of memory and be the first team to find 5 sheep in their teams colours. Great game for the mixed ages we had. teaching them to take turns and help each other out. The sheep were just cardboard cutouts with a colour drawn on the other side.

4. Sword Fighting Dodge – we were at the serious end of Dragon Training. I had purchased a foam sword for each child. Foam because hopefully no one would get hurt. I also made every a shield which was just two paper plates stabled together they wore on their hands. The aim of the game was to not get hit on the body by the soft beanie balls the adults were throwing at them. You could however deflect with the sword and shield. Please note we had a large area which made this manageable.

5. Sword Training – the kids were just allowed to use their swords to fight. This was totally unstructured and saw some keep exploring the bush and some (mainly boys) fighting for ages. The foam swords made it a safe activity.

The Cake

I made a large Chocolate Cake using the Baking Dish. then iced with butter cream. I wanted it to look like a Dragon Training Arena on the edge of an island. So I used chocolate covered honeycomb to make the rocky parts and Curly Wurly chocolates to make the fencing. the bottom was edged in Chocolate sticks from the biscuit aisle. I used a few of Hayden’s Dragons including Toothless to decorate. It had to be simple idea so that it could travel and then sit covered in the shade for a couple of hours.

Most importantly the kids LOVED all the chocolate and Hayden thought it was awesome.

Thank You gifts

Hayden gave every one their Dragon Training Certificate which again I created in PicMonkey with images from the How to Train Your Dragon website. They loved that they were now Dragon Trainers. All the children kept their swords.

I also made some little Thank you Party Bags using the tags straight from the website and some bags I already had in the cupboard. Inside were important things like lollies (only a few), a How to Train Your Dragon 2 Bookmark which I had laminated and a little Dragon or Dinosaur.