A Spy Party

Not every single weekend, but almost every weekend, we try to have a game night or family night. For a super long time, it was a Dungeons and Dragons game night, and Quijote and I think we will go back to that soon. But since stories were getting a little repetitive and kids were starting to loose interest, we decided to take a break and reset. In the meantime, we've had a few movie nights and girls/boys nights in. We've had a spa day once or twice, and there's also been some video game nights. We've had fun trying new things. 

But since the kids had had so much fun learning about mysterious creatures from outside our galaxy and looking for clues -or rather inventing them heheh!- it seemed like a little sleuthing fun might be a good party theme to try. During the week, I tried to come up with a mystery for them to solve. Thursday night I crafted, and Quijote let me go to Barnes and Noble to get a book early-ish on Friday morning (this would be the prize and my only expense,) and that same day before lunch, we had ourselves a little spy party. 

Quijote took the kids and even the dogs out for a walk while I set up my clues. When they got home I feigned surprise that civilians had bumped into the crime scene. Yes, someone had gone missing, and since the kids were already involved, we might as well have more people working on this case. I handed them a folder with 3 missions, two of which were aimed at them becoming actual detectives (though, since they were going to have missions, I decided to call them spies. It also seemed more dramatic). 

Mission 1 was to get through the laser rays without touching them to get to headquarters and change into their spy outfits. Mr E changed into an all black outfit and Miss E put on black pants and a pink dress with a key pattern on it.

Mission 2 was choosing a code name and taking it to fingerprinting so they could make themselves a name badge. These two missions, btw, I took from a blog I found on Pinterest. They put together a mystery involving a dessert robbery or birthday cake robbery for a birthday party and I would have followed them to the end, except I didn't want to invest in all the materials. But I did their first two missions pretty much exactly the same. Except I didn't buy any CAUTION tape or stamps or fancy gadgets like them, nor did I even print or buy any materials. I got a lot of ideas from all over Pinterest but simplified things or used whatever similar materials I already had and wrote or made everything myself. 

And since I was trying to keep it simple, I just gave the kids one more mission, to solve the mystery of the missing person by following clues that lead to another clue and then another clue... until they solved the mystery.

There were footprints, riddles, messages in Morse code, simple folding tricks, messages to be decoded with the use of a cypher, and of course we used a cardboard cryptex. In the end, the person had magically transformed into a cat and was just fine, and they were gifted a book each. 

Mr E said his favorite part was the laser beams. Miss E was able to enjoy the challenge of cryptography a whole lot more. It took them about an hour or so to get through all the clues, and hopefully, even if Mr E didn't love the work that went into solving this mystery, he at least got a little bit of an introduction to the world of cryptography, and both kids got some one on one time with each other and with us parents at different stages of the game. The kids worked together pretty well, with a little direction here and there, and ended up taking turns trying to think of how to solve the riddles. I think all in all, it was a fun little party!