Time to blow the dust off of this blog and get back to work. A lot of my blogging energy goes into creating blog posts for Canadian Scrapbooker magazine but every now and then I have other things that I like to share.
One of my teenage sons plays competitive soccer, so we usually find ourselves at an out of town tournament at least once or twice a year. During my first out of town tournament, I learned a lot from the other parents about having a detailed team agenda and activities to keep dozen and a half young teenage boys busy and happy, otherwise they seem to create their own fun (their fun usually involves lots of running, yellowing and different versions of tag and Mantracker. And mud, if available.).
One of the activities I have organized during the last two tournaments is an Amazing Race Lite run inside the hotel where the team is staying. Everybody seems to have the best time and it is a great way for the kids to get to know each other. Basically, it involves having ten or so different challenges or road blocks throughout the hotel and the boys race to complete all of the challenges. The first team to the pit stop (usually the breakfast room or lobby of the hotel) wins bragging rights and a $10 gift card to Dairy Queen or Booster Juice. (Actually, all members of the team get the same gift card when they complete the race but it's nice to get a prize).
The teams are selected by writing each boys name on a piece of paper, and then randomly drawing names to create teams of three. Teams of two or four work okay too if you have an odd number.
Challenges are set up primarily in the hotel rooms of different parents (although we have done the odd one in the pool area when a challenge needed more room). Tape the number of the challenge outside the room door. When the race starts, the teams need to find and complete each challenge. The challenges do not need to be done in any special order but instruct the teams that if a road block challenge is occupied, they have to wait quietly in the hallway for their turn.
NO elevators are allowed. The kids must use the stairs so if the parent rooms are scattered throughout a four story hotel, that can be a lot of stairs. For what its worth, I also tell the kids no running through the lobby area, be respectful of other guests and no yelling.
Here are some of the challenges I have used. I found some Amazing Race road block and detour templates on the internet and then just cut and paste the challenge instructions into the appropriate boxes. My advice would be to try all the challenges yourself and make sure they work for you first!
I placed ten items onto a small paper plate - jelly beans, tic tacs, smarties and other candy. Smarties were the hardest.
For this one I selected 16 World Cup teams and their countries flags, and printed them out on a piece of cardstock so the teams could use a pencil to match the country to the flags. Sixteen seemed to be about the right number for the 12 and 13 year old age group. A few teams struggled but others completed it in minutes!
The food challenges involved six different kinds of root beer (A&W regular and diet, Barqs, Mug, and two house brands) poured into little Dixie cups and the boys had to match the correct root beer to the correct bottle. Didn't actually do the blindfolding on this one. For the potato chips challenge, I bought six weird flavours of chips - loaded baked potato, cheeseburger, quesadilla and so on.
The marshmallow launcher was a tied off balloon tied over a disposable cup with the bottom cut out (I did this part). Just google "marshmallow launcher balloon" for a picture. The boys shot mini marshamallows into the hotel room ice bucket. There will be marshmallows everywhere, but they are easy to pick up.
I used a Dr Seuss poem for this one.
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.You can steer yourselfAny direction you choose.You’re on your own. And you know what you know.And YOU are the guy who’lldecide where to go.
And for the Puzzle challenge, I provided a 48 piece kid's floor puzzle and a small star wars lego set. You could make this easier or harder, but this worked out okay.
A few other ideas for challenges are:
Team Trivia! As a team, you must correctly answer ten trivia questions (I used questions from an 'Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader' board game I bought at a thrift store(
Your task is to complete
1 face on each Rubik's Cube of a different color. You MUST ask the Race Staff
Member which colors to complete. WARNING:
Sweaty hands may make this task difficult!
You will receive a bag
that has a variety of building materials. Your task is to screw 20 nuts onto 20
bolts. They must be fully on – all the way to the top! WARNING: Steady hands
are needed for this task. Don't stop halfway or you will have to redo it!
