Pirate Birthday Party Ideas 1

by Nicole A.
(Vancouver, Washington)

Every birthday for my son has to have a great theme. When he was 5 he loved pirates so we came up with a Pirates and Captains theme party. I think the captain and pirate theme is a great idea for boys four to ten ideally, but it depends on each childs taste.

We started his birthday bright and early upon waking up. His father drew him a treasure map and he followed it to a pile of "booty" that was hidden in a "treasure chest". (The treasure chest was a footstool with storage space from our living room.)

The gift was Buccanneer gear including a hat, eye patch, boots, sash and sword. (We try to re-use everything. After the party these costume items are great for the Halloween bin or your kids dress up bin.)

Ships Ahoy Decorations

We decorated the party area with sailor and pirate decorations. We had treasure chests, skull and cross bones goblets, and a pirate ship with a wheel. For the captains side of things we had anchor decorations, a ships wheel and a white flag that we painted to say "The Good Ship". We also had a black flag that said, "The Bad Ship". (These were for games for later).

Most of the decorations and pirate items you can find at your local dollar store, or Party City. Both stores are pretty inexpensive and if you combine inexpensive items with a few nicer items know one will notice.

Captains and Buccanneers Games

For entertainment we had each child choose if they wanted to be a scary Buccanneer Pirate or a good side Captain of the Good Ship.

The kids who chose to be pirates (the majority) got eye patches and the kids who chose to be captains got to go to the special "Captain's Land" and make captains hats.

Older kids might find it cheesy, but for the five year olds they loved making the captain's hats. We sat the kids around the table and they each had their papers that together we all folded until the hat appeared.

In the middle of the table was more gear from the dollar store. Feathers, markers, paints, glue, buttons, ribbons were all options for each mate to make his hat individual. The instructions for the hat are easily found online or at the craft store. Making crafts is so much fun for little ones. All the kids who were captains loved making and decorating them.

While the Captains were busy making hats, the Pirates were set to the task of making a "pirate ship". We had a big cardboard box that they decorated with craft supplies. When they were done my husband attached the skull and crossbones flag to it.

Then it was time for the big battle. One person from the pirate team got the "Bad Ship" flag and one person from the captain team got the "Good Ship" flag. The rules were simple. We told them that everything in the grass was the open sea and that they were having a big battle in their ships.

Everyone had to try to get the flag from the opposing team while protecting their own team. They ran around the yard with their play swords until everyone was too tired to move anymore!

We finished off with a group activity. We had a giant ship pinata for all the kids to take a whack at and again filled it with Buccanneer items like chocolate treasure, eye patches, and compasses.
Quiet Time

After all the fun the kids dug into a 3 layered pirate ship cake that we bought at the supermarket. It was very reasonably priced at around $30.00.

They were all tired by then and spent the last hour of the party trading "booty" that they had gotten from the pinata. I think it was the best theme we have done to date. I hope you enjoy it as well.