"Which Era?"

• Select important events from each of your birthday girl’s five decades to play “Which Era?” The party participants must guess in which decade an event occurred. Sample questions include time periods for the first moonwalk, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the invention of the Internet and the advent of the color television. Many important innovations and events provide plenty of choices for your game questions. You may have more trouble deciding what to leave out and when to stop. Encyclopedia yearbooks, trivia games and Internet trivia sites should offer you enough information to keep the party guessing.
  
  

“Who, What, Where?”

• “Who, What, Where?” is photographic knowledge-based game. Look at a photo of a person, landmark or object and identify basic important information. For example, you might identify a picture of John Glenn in a space suit and link him to the first man to orbit the Earth. To make the game more simple, provide multiple choice answers for your party guests. Include pictures of family members and companions, or local events and locations if your guest list includes family and close friends. Family scrapbooks, school yearbooks and local news archives provide the pictures you need for the game.
  
  

"Truth or Fiction?"

• How well do your party guests know the honoree or one another? “Truth or Fiction?” will reveal this to you. Provide snippets of possible information about your honoree’s life, such as her birthplace, middle name, favorite color or pet name. The participant guesses true or false and the honoree verifies the answer. Alternatively, each participant can offer up a plausible story and the rest of the party members can decide if it happened or not. Participants can offer more information or not as they wish.
  
  

“Are You Smarter Than a 50-Year-Old?”

• Some people claim the education standards have decreased since your 50-year-old birthday girl graduated. Regardless of whether that’s is or not, living 50 years provides a wealth of information not taught in school. Questions could include what ingredients go in made-from-scratch breakfast pancakes or how to get baby formula out of a dress shirt. In mixed-gender parties, include questions either gender would know, or have a separate list of male and female questions with additional general knowledge questions. Consider what information she might know because she grew up in an era before many convenience appliances and products were common.