DS wants a Bear Grylls Survivor party in the back garden.

[donovan]

Which would include a sleepover (in our tent)
We are going to have a BBQ for the food, but what sort of games would you do?
He is 9 btw.
I have thought about build your own tent, garden canes and a sheet per 3 kids, and maybe a kite making/decorating competion, but what else would you do.

Go off with torches in the woods to see if they can spot hedgehogs, badgers etc? Even if they don't see anything it'll be exciting. (Adult supvsn, obv.)

(Obv. not so easy if you don't live in the country)

Why not teach them firelighting skills? Cubs did that sort of stuff when ds was that age and they loved it. Get them allhelping to build up the kindling, get the fire going then marshmallows on skewers.

The important thing is that it should be just a little bit dangerous

Why don't you have a look at the Scouting website? If its anything like the Guiding one, it'll list things you have to do to gain badges. If you have a look, you might be able to get some ideas or take aspects of the badges anyway.

That sounds like a really cool idea for a party

Maybe 'The Dangerous Book for Boys' would have some ideas?

How much room have you got?

Of course given that it is Bear Grylls then they will all need to retire to a comfortable hotel at some stage

We live in the country and I love the animal spotting idea, and the build your own fire. You are right it needs to be just a little bit dangerous!!! Do you think that they might like to spot constallations ... or might that be bland?
How about cooking bread on a dry stick, if I remember rightly the stick has to be dry and with the bark off, does anyone remember what sort of stick it should be? and has anyone got a quick bread recipe? Dh has been thinking of all sorts, I can see me having a fire pit in my back yard before the summer is out! We have quite a big back yard, which is lucky.
Worringly, I am looking forward to this party .. except for dh's 'I am going to teach them how to make a catapult' which made my windows cringe!!!

bread on sticks is aka dampers, I think - recipe here

Trail of glow in the dark stickers / shapes for them to follow to a prize (bag of marshmallows for toasting?)

I want to come

You could populate the animal spotting trail with a few 'surprises' like eyes peeping from leaves.

I love the idea - my ds (nearly 9) would ADORE this sort of party. He is mad keen on toasting marshmallows.

There's this thing he's discoverd called 'smores' which are two biscuits with a melted marshmallow sandwiched inside them.

What about picking blackberries and dying tee shirts with the juice?

Thanks stealth. I think ds and his mates might be joined by ALL their dads, who all seem rather exicted by the bear grylls camping idea. I think that it will be fun. I hope so, as this is the last party I will be doing, unless the kids have 18th/21st bday parties. (ds will be 10 on his bday, he is 9 now)

its donovan by the way.
My dad has just told me that he has a recipe for cooking a breakfast with out a frying pan, apparently you grease tin foil, and put layers of bacon, black pudding, sliced sausage tomatoes and make a well in the middle for an egg wrap it tightly in in the foil and put it in the fire. so we might have that for breakfast.
Brilliant ideas from you all, a million thankyou's. I just hope it doesn't rain.

Can you make some of the food out to be something gross / exotic? i.e. Grubs etc. (but not really but play it straight).

Who dares to try it???

Lychees for eye balls and marshmallows for the grubs? blind folded maybe. hmm good idea.

Well we had the party on friday evening and all went well.
The boys all came at 4, and we started by getting them to help put the cheepo tent (dh brought for the occasion as dh was not going to risk ours) up.
Then we had a bbq. Then they made their own tents with old sheets and bamboo sticks, some of the tents were fantastic, and a few of the boys wanted to sleep in their own tents over night ... a big no to that.
Then he had them making their own catapults, which made me (and the windows) feel a little sick. By this point some of the boys dads had turned up, so we did the making and lighting of a camp fire, (my garden looks lovely now!) one adult per three kids per fire, and they cooked smores over the camp fire whilst I provided hot chocolate, by this time it was 8. So dh and his best mate threw all the kids and dads in their cars, and they went to dh's dads bit of land. and went stalking, oh, I forgot to add the boys made their own spears at the catapult stage. It had taken us a whole day last weekend to get all the 'spears and catapult wood' together, over on the land. So after the stalking which wasn't very succesful as the boys were too noisy, they came home and we did a bit of star spotting for, oh, all of 10 mins and then it was ghost stories with me in the tent. 10 smelly boys and me in one tent .. well it wasn't for the faint hearted!
In the morning we cooked a fry up for them all with my dads no pan recipe (see above) and then they went home! dh and I spent the rest of the day with the kids coming in and out even when it rained. (the kids had originally gone home but were back in our garden in an hour) I needed a bottle of wine last night .. to myself.

gastronaught - what a fab party. You and your DH sound like awesome parents! I bet all the boys remember that party their whole lives