Saturday night we hosted Jack’s birthday party online.  It was a smashing success!  All 11 friends came for a night of snacks and trivia.

The kids and I assembled party packs for the guests to pick up earlier in the week.   Each had popcorn, Skittles, Sprite, a cupcake and candle, a LEGO minifig blind bag, and the Visual Round and answer sheet for trivia.  I think this really helped the kids feel united, like they were actually attending a party and not just logging on to chat with friends. (They all randomly ran off to get Harry Potter costumes when they started seeing each other. I dunno what that was about.)

I put together 8 rounds of trivia, with 6 questions each.  I was aiming for about 80-90% correct answers from the kids, so they felt successful.  Jack hardly missed any questions, I might have tailored it to his interests a little too well 🙂 I put the trivia in a slide presentation, that also showed the rules and the teams.  You can see it here if you are curious.  I removed the kids’ names.

We used the style of trivia we know from Geeks Who Drink, and we used the virtual trivia method we have been playing with out friends since March.  In Zoom they have a feature called break-out rooms, where you can privately discuss answers with just your team mates.  Instead of electronic answer submission (like we do in adult trivia), Ben popped into each breakout room to repeat questions as needed and collect their answers verbally.  He was mission control, organizing break-out rooms and tallying scores.  I was the emcee, presenting the questions and answers, and prompting Ben when to pop into groups based on the chatter I heard upstairs from Jack.

We used the Main room, with everyone in it, to open minifigs, light cupcakes and sing, and go over questions and answers.  We changed the teams every two rounds, so each kid got a chance to see most everyone else in small groups during the night.  It’s so hard to visit on zoom with more than a few screens at a time, I think this party made it extra fun and social for the kids.  The team changes also leveled the competition, so everyone got to be a on a winning team (Jack’s) at least once.

Jack has really great friends.  Smart and kind and funny.  They all sincerely had a good time playing together.  Jack was on a high all night and raved the whole weekend about his party. I was relieved not to be hosting people in my house.  It took a lot of work to coordinate and create the party, but I think it paid off big time – and no house mess to clean up afterward!