Pirate Birthday Party

by Sylvia Norton
(Maine)

On my son's 3rd birthday party we went with a pirate birthday party theme. We decorated the tables and low hanging tree's with black and white streamers and Skulls and Crossbones hanging around the tables.

We had a wooden barrel available that we placed nearby with plastic swords, shields and a few pirate hats topping it. Every child was given an eye patch and a skull and crossbones sash that we found at a party store.

Pirate Birthday Games

One of the main games we played involved a child sized pool/sandbox that we filled with water. We bought toy fishing rods with fish and the objective was to catch as many fish as possible in 1 minute. The winner won a bag of candy and pirate toys, such as an action figure (from the local dollar store) some smarties, bazooka bubble gum and MnM's.

The next game we played also involved the childs swimming pool. We had all the kids draw up a quick stick figure of themselves and put there name at the bottom.

We then used small twigs to hold them up and used made up paper launchers to launch balls of paper across the pool at the little stick figures. We split the kids into 2 teams and each kid had an opportunity to fire at the other team. The team that knocked more of or all of the stick figures of the opposing team won a plastic sword, a pirate action figure, and a bag of candy.

The opposing team was given a secondary prize of a bag of candy. We then gave kids a ride around the yard with the lawn tractor and a wagon that we made a cardboard pirate ship out of.

The last game we did was the traditional Walk the Plank. We took a long 4x4 and put it across the kids pool as the plank. Kids that were able to make it across the first time won a Pirate hat, 2nd time was a clip on mustache and anytime after the 2nd was an eye patch with a skull and crossbones on it.

We decorated the cake with light (sand colored) brown icing, 6 pirate action figures, a cake treasure chest we made with cake and icing and a couple toy gold coins.

We also placed a few toy Palm Tree's on the corners of the cake to make it look more "Island-ish". And of course we sang the birthday song in a pirate accent and used Argh alot!