Moana Ta Ka Boat Game

The Moana Ta Ka Boat Game is the sixth and final challenge in the Moana Scavenger Hunt. It was also everybody’s favorite. The great part is that no matter if you make it very elaborate or very simple, it is a lot of fun.

Moana Ta Ka Boat Game Tutorial

Moana Scavenger Hunt Step 6 – Fighting Ta Ka
See all the other steps for the Moana Party Games

Video Clip:
(I like to pair party games with clips from the movies since it makes it more “real” for the kids.)
Moana’s boat breaks as she tries to return the Heart of Te Fiti, but she doesn’t give up and repairs her boat. (DVD Clip Time: 1:22:49 to 1:26:01)

Instructions to Kids:
To get to Te Fiti, you must cross the ocean and get past Ta Ka. But your boat is broken and you all have only one piece. You must work together to use your boats to cross the ocean.

Challenge:
Using your boards, work together to get across the ocean. If you step off your board, you drown and have to start at the beginning. If Ta Ka hits you with one of her fireballs, you fall off your board and start at the beginning. If no one is touching a board, it floats away and is removed from the game. Get across the ocean and place the Heart of Te Fiti on Ta Ka’s spiral to change her back into Te Fiti.

Moana Ta Ka Boat Game Set Up:
You will need either a board or a piece of cardboard for each child. Our boards came from a very cool, but easy, Moana boat my husband designed. When it was time to play the game, we disassembled or “broke” the boat and gave each piece to each of the girls. But it really doesn’t have to be that fancy. Using large pieces of cardboard would work just fine.

You will also need somebody to be Ta Ka. If you want to get fancy, you can make a costume using a black shirt, a felt spiral, a black cape, and a black Airsoft mask. I made the eyes red by laying packing tape over red tissue and cutting it out in the shape of the eye hole. The tissue was semitransparent, so you could still see fairly well.

I then bought some glowing balls from the dollar store. They are kind of like a light stick, but in the shape of a ball, so they actually glowed!

For the transformation into Te Fiti, we used a green sheet, one of the flower leis, and a fabulous wig from our dress-up box. I also grabbed one of the Heart of Te Fiti’s I had made from the Moana Sea Shell Hunt Game. My husband tucked it all under his shirt so that when it was time to transform into Te Fiti he could just pull it out and slip it on.

At the start of the Moana Ta Ka Boat Game, all the girls lined up on one side of the yard. I gave them the Heart of Te Fiti and each one got a board.

Working together, they started to make their way across the “ocean.” They had only gotten a few boards down when they spotted Te Ka (aka my husband who is the best sport in the world) and started to get nervous.

He looked amazing in his costume. He decided to have the wig on under the mask so it was easier to transform. Is it just me or does it look a lot like Weird Al? I’m having a hard time deciding if we should have splurged on a green wig or if the goofy jerry curl wig just made things even more hilarious.

With fireballs flying, the girls worked together to make it across the “water.”

This would be an amazing team building activity. The girls did a great job.

But even when you are working as a team, it is hard to resist the urge to use your friend as a human shield.

Under the stress of flying fireballs, the girls lost a board when it floated away. But they were quick to repair the breach. It was fun when they lost boards because they had to start sharing boards, which made things trickier. Depending on how hard you want to make it, you can adjust how strict you are about the rules.

And pretty soon they were almost there! Their faces crack me up. It was pretty intense with the fireballs flying.

Once there, they passed the Heart of Te Fiti up to the girl at the front and she placed it on the spiral. Victory!  Towards the end, my husband went easier on them so they could make it.

Once the Heart of Te Fiti was in place, the transformation began.

And Te Ka turned into beautiful Te Fiti!

The girls’ reaction was priceless. I am so glad my husband agreed to do it. It would not have been nearly as funny if it had been me. A Te Fiti with a goatee and a Weird Al wig is amazing.

The girls went nuts! When I asked them later, they said the Moana Ta Ka Boat Game was by far their favorite! It was seriously epic!