Pirate Party. Party Themes

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Party Themes. Pirate Party.

Sail off to Pirate's Cove for a hearty party aboard ship. All you need are cardboard boxes and paint to turn your party place into a pirate ship! Yo-ho, yo-ho, it's a Pirate Party for us!

INVITATIONS
COSTUMES
DECORATIONS
GAMES
ACTIVITIES
FOOD
TREASURE CHEST CAKE
FAVORS
VARIATIONS
HELPFUL HINTS

INVITATIONS up

Help your guests find their way to Pirate's Cove with a Treasure Map invitation. Draw a simple map of your neighborhood, including the homes of each guest and your own. Mark your home with an X, then add familiar sights, and give them creative names, such as Hangman's Tree, Dead Man's Mall, and Peg-Leg's Restaurant. Photocopy the map and personalize each map by making a dotted-line path from the guest's house to the party house. Tear or burn the edges, roll the maps into scrolls, secure with gold strings, and mail.
For fun, put the Treasure Map scrolls inside empty plastic soda bottles to create an Invitation in a Bottle. Hand deliver to guests. Let them figure out how to retrieve the invitations!
Attach eye patches or plastic swords to the invitations.

COSTUMES up

Ask the kids to dress as pirates.
Buy pirate-wear at a thrift store and let the kids dress up at the party.
Provide eye patches and swords (see Activities), fake jewelry, handkerchiefs, and phony mustaches. Dot the kids' faces with black eye pencil to create "three-day beards."

DECORATIONS up

With a little imagination, you can turn the party area into a Pirate's Cove. Get a few large appliance boxes, and line them up to form the foundation of your pirate ship. Open the boxes at the top, and cut openings between connecting boxes to form sections of the ship. Cut out round windows along the sides. Form a "walk-the-plank" entrance by cutting an opening on one side of the ship and laying the cardboard piece on the floor. Bend the cardboard boxes into a point at both ends of the ship to form the fore and aft. Paint the whole ship brown, raise a crow's nest using a hat rack or an old lamp post, and attach a pirate flag. You're ready to sail!

GAMES up

Play Walk the Plank! Set out an eight-foot length of two-by-four board. Line the kids up at one end. Beginning with easy challenges, have the kids walk straight across the flat part of the board without stepping off into the "sea." After everyone has completed the first task, increase the difficulty level. Have the kids walk the plank backwards, sideways, hopping, without using their hands for balance, with weights on both arms to obscure balance, passing over an obstacle set in the middle, and-for the ultimate challenge-blindfolded! When a pirate falls into the sea, he or she must drop out of the game. When only one pirate remains, award a prize.
Have a Treasure Hunt. Hide some chocolate gold coins around the yard or party room, and let the kids hunt for them. Make sure everyone gets a handful of coins when the hunt is over.

ACTIVITIES up

Make eye patches for the pirates. Cut the eye patches from felt or imitation leather, and attach a length of elastic string on both sides.
Make swords. Cut out short lengths of cardboard and round the tips. Cut two smaller pieces as the crossbars, and glue or staple the crossbars to the swords. Paint the blades silver and the handles black. Let the kids decorate their own swords.
Make pirate flags. Give each kid a rectangular piece of lining material or cotton and permanent felt-tip pens. Let them color their own pirate flags. Staple the finished flags to dowels.

FOOD up

Serve bowls of hot soup to warm up the pirates, and call it Black Bart Stew. '
Offer plates of chicken legs or hot dogs, and let the kids eat with their fingers, the way pirates used to do.
For a perfect pirate meal, serve fish 'n' chips!
Let the pirates quench their thirst with apple cider.

TREASURE CHEST CAKE up

Bake a rectangular cake; cool.
Frost with chocolate frosting. Decorate with colorful sprinkles and chocolate gold coins to make it look tike a chest lid.
Clean the baking pan, then frost the outside sides of the pan.
Set the pan at a right angle to the cake to form a treasure chest.
Fill the chest with candy jewelry and chocolate gold coins.

FAVORS up

Send the pirates home with their loot- chocolate gold coins, eye patches, swords, costume parts, flags, and fake jewelry.

VARIATIONS up

Rent a pirate movie, such as Peter Pan or Hook, and have a video pirate party.

HELPFUL HINTS up

Be sure to keep the homemade swords dull-no sharp points-and supervise the sword fights.
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