By Pam Molnar

It’s graduation season and time to start planning your party. Every parent tries to make their child’s event unique, especially since the same group of kids will circulate to each other’s party. Most guests will come to congratulate the graduate, fill their plates, and sit at a table where they will remain until it’s time to leave. Why not liven things up by offering some friendly competition with games your guests will love?

Does it Add Up? Purchase several boxes of dollar-store dominos. Pour them into a 5-gallon bucket with ice and water dyed to match the school colors. Players work to gather enough dominos to add up to ’25. The person to reach that number first wins. 

O-Fish-ally Done with High School. Fill a kiddie pool with water and place chairs around it. Add Swedish or plastic fish as well as a few other water creatures like sharks, seahorses, or turtles. Invite all the players seated around the pool to take off their shoes. On go, the players use their feet to get as many Swedish fish as they can in a minute (or two).

Tossing of the Hats. Break the group up into teams of two. One player sits in a chair while the other tosses graduation caps and tries to land it on their partner’s head. You can also play this game like tic tac toe by creating a game board on the driveway and using two different colored graduation caps.

I’m Blown Away. Set up tea candles on a long table in a line about 8" apart. Next to each candle, place a small prize like gum, a candy bar, a hair clip, etc. The dollar store is a great source for these prizes. Players take turns standing at the end of the table and try to blow out as many candles as they can. The player gets to keep the prize next to the last candle they blew out. Keep moving prizes and candles to fill in the space until all prizes are gone.

Pass or Fail. Mark the grades on small paper plates — one A, one F and the rest B, C, and D. You will need a plate for each player. Hole punch the plates and attach a long piece of colored yarn to it. Gather up all the yarn and pull through the hole at the bottom of a Solo cup and place it upside down. 

Lay out all the attached plates randomly around the cup. Players take turns pulling a piece of yarn through the cup. If the player gets an F, they are out. If a player gets a B, C or D, they are still in but will remove that plate. If they get an A, they stay in and no plates are removed. Play until there are only two players left and the last one gets an A.

Find the Keys to Success. Turn your party space into a scavenger hunt. Purchase a package of 125 keys used for jewelry (under $10 on Amazon) and hide them in plain sight on tables, near the food, on the counter in the bathroom, etc. Have a small prize for the most keys collected during the party. Warning: this game might have the hostess finding unclaimed keys around her house for weeks!

The Freshman 15. This game is a fun relay race. Players use cups to carry water to a big bucket on a scale. The first team to get to 15 lbs. is the winner. You can play this with other variations using different sized cups, squeezing sponges, or with players passing water from cup to cup instead of running. You can also play with teams playing against each other with someone from the opposite team trying to empty their opponents’ bucket with a teaspoon while they are filling it up with cups.

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? You would hope this would be an easy game for a bunch of high school graduates, but you might be surprised. Gather questions for math, science, grammar, and history that should be able to be answered by a 5th grader. Players can be assisted by their classmates. If a player gets a question wrong, they have to admit that they are not smarter than a 5th grader. Offer points for each right answer with a grand prize for the winner.

Whatever you play, have fun celebrating your graduate’s special day! 

Pam Molnar is the mother of three and an avid party planner. She enjoys writing about having fun and making memories together.