Railroad Mix-Up

Supplies:

• 5-10 shoeboxes (or other small boxes)
• Small household items for each box (i.e. matchbox cars, wrapped candies, bouncy balls, etc.)
• Red, yellow, green, blue, orange and black construction paper
• Glue or tape

Directions:

A train on the Thunder Mountain railroad is all mixed-up and the cars are completely out of order! Kids must work together to figure out what order the cars must go in before the engine leaves without them! Each car is filled with a certain number of items and must be placed in sequence according to its load. The car carrying one item goes first, two items goes second, and so on. But…no peeking into the cars!

Before the party:

1. Gather enough shoeboxes and cover each box including the lid with construction paper in a different color – the engine should be black. Wrap lids separately so you can shuffle items around.
2. Collect items for each box.

At the party:

1. When everyone is out of the room, place items in boxes. Your train might look like this: 1 matchbox car in Yellow Boxcar, 2 spoons in Blue Boxcar, 3 candies in Green Boxcar, etc.)
2. Once you have your train complete, write the correct order down on a secret cheat sheet in code (i.e. YBGOR)
3. Divide group into two teams. Team 1 is given the secret code and Team 2 must try to get the trains in the correct order. Team 2 can shake the boxes to listen for clues, but no peeking!
4. Set a timer for 1 minute. While the timer is going, Team 1 gives clues by saying, “You have 2 rights and 3 wrong! After 1 minute, Team 2 must submit their final configuration.
5. Once you’ve completed one game switch teams and mix-up the items in the cars. See which team has the best Imagineers!