Army party

[Changebagsandgladrags]

DS really wants an army themed party. We are not military at all.

So, my idea revolves around an assault course in the back garden:

through a tunnel, under a tarpaulin, round some cones and shooting a Nerf gun from a hide-out to knock over some cans.

It sounds a bit lame to me, but I intend dressing the garden up in some camo stuff to at least make it look passable.

What else can I do?

I don't like kids playing with guns but I wouldn't bother about an army party any more than a pirate party (far more bloodthirsty).

if it helps, my DS is now in the army and would have hated an army party at that age, would have been far happier with a teddy bears picnic.....
War is terrible, people do die but an army party with assault courses and camo paint is a brilliant activity filled idea.

We had a party for DS when he was about that age. I forget the theme but I think it was dragons or something like that. However it did verge on Lord of the Flies territory when a couple of horrors decided to run around punching other kids (and DH, quite hard in the stomach).

So no, army party won't make your kids turn into the Terminator. There's more to being a soldier than shooting people.

Honestly OP, don't worry. I doubt anyone will have any issue with it, children will find out about war and reenact army-related activities regardless of whether or not they go to a birthday party with some face paint and an assault course.

Plenty of children actually have soldiers as parents, after all

Besides, I'd say it's much more of an issue to go around saying ridiculous things like "soldiers kill people" to children who don't understand context, or what terrorism actually is, etc, than to have a bit of fun with an 'army' theme!

We had an army party for my d's 7th birthday and he loved it!
I made a target out of cardboard and they had a shooting competition with nerf guns (mainly to deter them from shooting each other...it worked pretty well).
We hid loads of toy soldiers around the garden and they all did a toy soldier hunt with a prize for the winner.
Birthday cake was just a plain chocolate cake with chocolate ganache icing ..... made to look like a big mound of mud...very easy! With one of my d's toy tanks on the top and toy soldiers all around the base of the cake shooting towards the tank. He loved it and I loved that it was so easy to decorate!

er.....but soldiers DO kill people- hence the guns etc. The army doesn't exist to provide young working class lads with travel and adventure opportunities. On the other hand most of the activities suggested sound fun and I'm sure the kids will love it.

Cain both of my children know that soldiers kill people. They also know context. They've been told that the men who start wars aren't the ones out there fighting them.

Party was yesterday.

I think it went well, we had 10 kids out of a possible 12 and we knew in advance that two were doubtful.

They had a great time on the assault course. They had to crawl trough a tunnel, weave in and out of a line of tin cans, step through tires, crawl under a tarpaulin and finally shoot down some cans with a nerf gun.

Inside we did a 'TNT' pinata. I even made a camo cake which turned out quite well.

The weather held out, it rained 5 mins after everyone going home.

Great to hear everything went well. My boys would love a party like this with the assault course and probably many others in his class too. Well done.