Pokémon interest

My two older kiddos are currently into Pokémon. If I am being honest, I believe one of my son’s interest is because his brother is into Pokémon. Also, many of their friends like and trade cards. My kiddos battle cards against each other. One of them has read many Pokémon books. He knows lots of trivia about many of the Pokémon and trainers.

Initial Pokémon in our home

Pokémon in our home began when my oldest son was in second grade. One of his classmates gave all of their peers two Pokémon cards as a Valentine. That peaked a small interest in him. Then, for Cub scouts, all of the scouts in his ‘den’ were to bring in something they collected. My oldest took in his rock collection with fossils, gems, shark teeth and more. Two of his fellow scouts took in their Pokémon card collections. They were neatly filed in card guards inside 3-ring 2” binders. My son looked through his friends’ binders at the cards and asked questions. After that, the number of Pokémon cards in our home grew quickly.

Though I don’t understand how the card battles work and how the score is kept, I have learned some things from my sons’ interests. Also, I have learned some things by playing Pokémon Go! with them a little bit. I can identify about a dozen Pokémon.

My oldest asked for a Pokémon-themed party. His birthday is in the Summer, so we had is party outside. The only Pokémon related items were the few decorations I purchased and a pokéball piñata filled with candy. For decorations, I went with black, white and red colors. I was trying to match a regular pokéball. Table cloths were red and black. I found red, black and white pompom garland for added decorations. The cupcakes had red and black frosting. We had red, white and black tissue balls hanging from the deck roof. The rest of his party was water play. Therefore, when my middle son asked for a Pokémon-themed party, I went to Pinterest for ideas. His birthday is in the winter, so inside activities were necessary.

Inside Pokémon Party

The winter Pokémon party had some of the same decorations. This was a little different, though. For my middle son’s party I decided on dark blue, yellow and an aqua color. Paper cups were solid aqua and solid yellow. Pokémon plates were used to serve cake. For the second party we purchased a cake with yellow, blue and aqua, with four Pokémon characters on it. Plastic disks with Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle accompanied a light-up Pikachu on top of the cake. There were five Pokémon-themed activities for the party guests to enjoy. My son requested certain games to be played at his party. These included, “Pin the tail on Squirtle,” “Bean Bag Toss” and “Tin Can Knock Over.”

Game-Pin the tail on Squirtle

The first game was Pin the tail on Squirtle. To make this game, I drew Squirtle on a poster board, including the tail, and colored it in. Then, using copier paper, I traced the tail. The copy paper was thin enough to see the tail underneath. I was able to put the copy paper on top of the poster board and trace the tail. My husband made copies of the tail. There were enough tails for every guest plus a few extra. One evening I cut out the blank Squirtle tails. My plan was for the kids to color or decorate their own tail. For the blindfold my husband and I cut strips of fabric. Because sickness was going around, we made a blindfold for each guest plus a few extra. Each kid had their own blindfold.

One by one, the guests lined up to take their turn at Pin the tail on Squirtle. One grown-up secured the blindfold on the next person in line. Meanwhile, another grown-up put a piece of painter’s tape on the back of the tail. Then, one by one, each guest tried to put the tail on Squirtle. I drew the tail on the poster board to identify the correct placement for the tail.

Bean bag toss Pokeball Game

The second game my son asked for was a bean bag toss game. The idea of this game is simple. There is a large poster board with a few holes cut out. The player tosses a bean bag and tries to get it into one of the holes. Looking at the game, I determined what items I needed and got to work. First, I went online and printed off a few pictures of Pokémon characters onto regular printer paper. At JoAnn, I purchased a black piece of poster board. I did not have bean bags on hand, so I chose something I did have. Plastic practice baseballs with holes were cleaned and converted into pokeballs. The desired size of the hole was cut out three times on the poster board. Then, the pictures of Pokémon characters were added around the holes.

My husband made something that resembled a fort out of a large cardboard box. In the front of the fort he attached the poster board with Pokémon on it. This held up the poster board and allowed the pokeballs to go through the holes.  At first many of the guests enjoyed this game as it was to be played. After a little while their interests turned to playing with this game as a fort. Soon the whole thing was demolished. This was a fun game and was enjoyed by many. However, I would suggest making the cardboard into a triangle shape. It would work better to be used only as a support for the game and not large enough to be used as a fort.

Tin Can Knock Down

The third game my son asked for was to knock the tin cans over. To prepare for this game, our family had to eat lots of soup. I did not have a stockpile of empty cans on hand. However, we did have some cans with soup and vegetables in them. After emptying the contents of the cans, taking the labels off, then running the cans through the dishwasher, the cans were ready to be decorated. I measured the height and circumference of the can. Then, cut a piece of white paper to the right size, about 1/8 inch shorter in height and 1/8 inch longer in circumference.

I found uniform pictures of Pokémon faces, printed them and cut them out. The faces were then taped to the paper, then the paper was wrapped around each can. My husband secured the papers on the cans with two pieces of packing tape. I had ten small cans and six larger cans. Therefore, there were two stations of this game.

The tin cans required something harder to knock them over than the plastic practice baseballs with holes. Therefore, I used something else I had on hand. They were plastic practice baseballs without holes in them. Like the balls being used in place of bean bags for the other game, these were also converted into pokeballs.

Pokémon Activities

In addition to the games, we had a couple of activities. These were quiet things that each guest could do on their own, as they wanted. They could also do these activities with their grown-ups or other guests.  One was a guessing game and the other activity was a coloring station.  

Guess how many Pokeballs

The first activity was to guess how many pokeballs were in a jar. I purchased a pack of 100 mini ping pong balls from Amazon. We had some small circle stickers on hand. Each ball had a center seam line. I put one of the circle stickers on the seam. Then, with a black permanent marker, drew around the circle sticker and around the ball on the seam. After that, I filled in one side of the seam with a red permanent marker and removed the sticker. When completed, that made a mini pokeball (or 100 of them). Because he was turning 7, I wanted to have 77 ping pong balls in the jar. However, that many would not fit. Fifty-seven pokeballs fit nicely, though! I had that activity on a windowsill.

Guess Game Set up

There were a few items included in this activity. First, there was the glass jar with pokeballs in it. I tried a few different sizes of jars and containers before choosing the one that best fit for our activity. I set the jar filled with the pokeballs on the windowsill.

Beside the jar I placed a sign for the activity. The sign read, “Guess: How many Pokeballs are in the jar? Write your name and guess on a paper and drop it into the Eevee can! (0-100) *Kids Only.” The ‘0-100’ meant that their guess could not be over 100.

The ‘Eevee can’ was a tin can with a picture of the pokemon Eevee on it, placed beside the sign. In front of the sign there were strips of paper for guesses to be written onto. On the paper I wrote ‘Name’ and ‘Guess’ to identify which guest guessed which number. There was a wide range of guesses for this activity. They guessed from in the 30’s up to 99. One child did write down the correct amount.

Design Your Own Pokeball

The other activity we did was fairly simple to set up and do. On Pinterest, I found blank Pokeball templates. Using cardstock I printed out enough for each child to design at least three pokeballs. This activity was placed on the table.  Many crayons were placed on the table along with the papers and a sign inviting the guests to create. The sign read, “Decorate and design your own pokeball!” Most of the kiddos put lots of time and thought into creating their own designs.

Some of his friends brought their pokemon cards. They looked through cards, traded some and enjoyed being together. Maybe someday I will learn more about the characters and the game and battles. For now, I am grateful that my kiddos enjoy time with friends and family.