Planning

A Pirate Theme has always been timeless - but with the Pirates of the Caribbean series of movies the popularity has skyrocketed!  "X" marks the spot with this theme celebrating the Seven Seas - and children of all ages will get excited by the Red, White, Black, skulls and cross bones, eye patches and red bandanas - and of course, the thought that somewhere treasure is hidden! 

What is your "Party Picture"?

Pirates of the Caribbean Personalized Birthday Banner

hink of pirate ships, uninhabited islands, treasure, swords and the colorful variety of pirates out there!  You can work with a movie specifically or pirates generally - the choice is yours.    There are books with a lot of inspiration as well, as well as video games.  Find the niche you'd like to work with so that there is some definition to your Pirate Theme, otherwise you can get overwhelmed by everything out there! Pirates of the Caribbean/Jack Sparrow Peter Pan (Hook) How I Became a Pirate General Pirate Motif Don't forget to frame your activities in a Pirate glow and throw in some pirate music as well!  Every aspect of your party can be in shades of Pirate!  As you plan each element ask yourself how this can be incorporated into your overall theme.  A Pirate Theme can be appropriate at any venue - however, it has the potential to have a lot of active revelers (sword fighting, and battling) so consider outdoor venues as a way to open up the space for active kids! Welcome your guests in style - give each guest a pirate eyepatch, a red bandana tied around their head and use black face paint to draw a little goatee or add dark eyeliner for fun!  You can also supply Pirate Hats (or, if you have a knack for folding, you can make them!)  Don't forget a fake tattoo!

 

 

Invitations

Your invitation to a Pirate Theme should immediately evoke the sense of Pirate Fun!  The invitation sets the stage and builds excitement (and the more excitement with the kids, the more of a turn out your party will have!)  If you want your guests to dress the party then let them know that All Pirates Be Welcome and drop a note to parents that any type of pirate dress would add to your festivities!  Planning to attend can become as much fun as planning the party!

Communicating with your Guests

Pirates Invitations (8)

Preprinted Invitations:  There are many varieties of preprinted invitations for this party  - just fill in and send! Pirate Map:  Create a pirate Treasure Map to your house, with party information and details on the back.  "X Marks the Spot for Treasure and Fun at ____________'s Birthday Party!"  Goody "Bag":  Tie a black eye patch, a gold clip on earring hoop and party information up in a red bandana so that each guest is ready to dress the part when they attend your Pirate Party! Message in a Bottle:  One birthday supplier has an ingenious Pirate Party Invitation in a bottle - you can purchase this great idea or try to replicate it yourself! Pirate Mark:  On black cardstock paste the skull and crossbones that is the universal symbol for Pirate!  Tear the edges of white paper and paste inside the folded cardstock (or on the back for a postcard style invitation) and use black script to write party details. Scroll into my party:  Take white heavy stock paper and sprinkle it with strong tea (use half the water per tea bag).  Let each sheet dry then use black script to provide party details.  Center a Jolly Roger sticker at the top and roll.  Tie it off with a red ribbon!

Pirate Invitations (8)

Party Reminder:

• Arrrrr Matey - Don't Forget Me Party!  Send a Party Reminder with a fun picture of your child dressed as a Pirate looking scowly and mean, pointing at the camera (and thus the viewer).  What a fun way to remind people of the party, AND the theme!

Thank You Notes:

• Personalize!  I always like a Thank You Note that acknowledges the party AND the guest.  A great way to do this is to send the group picture of all of the guests with any pirate accoutrements they may have worn all looking like they are about to rush into battle!  It's a great souvenir for the guests as well as a Thank You Note. 
• Treasuring our friends:  Insert a picture of your pirate/child holding the box of treasure - "All the gold in the world doesn't match having you for a friend!  Thank you for coming to my party…"

 

Invitations	Thank You Notes
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Dress It Up

Red, White, Black and GOOOOOLLLLLDDDDDD….  Ships, the Seven Seas, the Jolly Roger, Treasure Maps and Treasure chests - all of this brings a Pirate Theme to life.  Try to tailor your Theme down a little as "Pirate" in general can get overwhelming.  Select your key elements and then add the details to everything else. 

Decorating Your Party Space:

Pirates Personalized Banner	Colors:  Red and Black are your primary colors with this theme, however, the sand of the beach, the wood of the Pirate Ship, and the Gold of the, well, Gold all come in.  You can make this theme as dark or as vivid as you'd like.    A Treasure Map Welcome:  Welcoming your guests sets the stage for your party - make a splash at your entrance!  Greet guests at their "starting" point with a treasure map that takes the guests into the party space (have clues along the way that let guests know they are on the right path!)  This makes the minute or two it takes to get to the party a great excitement builder!  Welcome Aboard Matey!  Hang the Jolly Roger and surround your entryway with black balloon and a crate with a lantern sitting on sprinkled with a few golden coins. Deathly Welcome:  Get a skeleton (you can use a posterboard one from Halloween or get a skeleton replica) and have it pointing towards the house.  Have another holding a shovel, and a third sitting and looking at gold and jewels!  (Note, this will scare younger children, so use your judgment on this idea!) Pirate Hideaway:  A pirate hideaway would have wood crates, burlap cloth table coverings, black balloons, and a treasure chest spilling gold coins and "jewelry" .  Hang the Jolly Roger and have fun. Hang ropes (or brown streamers) and toss in an inflatable alligator for fun.   For older kids working with the Pirates of the Caribbean movie theme, try to recreate "Tortuga" Island! Ship's Ahoy!  Okay, for the TRULY creative - try making a pirate ship for your guests.  You can use boxes from appliances or thin wood and cloth to create the illusion of a Pirate Ship.  My daughter went to a party for a 5 year old little boy whose parents had turned the little boy's play room INTO a pirate ship.  It must have taken weeks to get all the details right, but it was wonderful! Map Wall Coverings:  Other than the Jolly Roger, the other universal symbol that represents Pirates are Treasure Maps.  Make large maps out of butcher paper (tan) and cover large walls to surround your guests with the Pirate experience.
Pirate Hats* (8)
Pirate Sword & Eye Patch

Tablescape -

• A Treasure of a Table:  Take brown construction paper and cover your table.  Draw a treasure map on the table and scatter with coins and "jewelry" (plastic beads, costume jewelry you're ready to get rid of, etc.)  Have an "island" drawn in the center and create a large cardboard/construction paper palm in the center of your table!  Or, create your cake to look like an island that is centered on the map, with "X" marking the spot!  Name places and "seas" after your guests so that the table is personalized and fun for the guests!
• Jolly Roger Table:  Use red bandanas for place mats (they can be added to Party Favor bags after the party!) on a black tablecloth with the Jolly Roger attached (you can use poster board to cut out the skull and cross bones).  Use Jolly Roger place settings to finish the table.  Use a treasure box as the centerpiece!  (It can be a "real" one or, you can create a cake that looks like a treasure box! 

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Food/Drink

Pirates are the nomads of the sea - so a Seven Seas theme for your refreshments fits right in!  And if your food doesn't fit, then have fun with what you serve it in!

Food -

• Fish food:  Fish sticks, fish shaped chicken nuggets and french fries will make even the pickiest eater happy! 
• Pirate Pizza:  Cut pepperoni into the shape of a fish and have Pirate Pepperoni Pizza!
• Pirate Service:  Serve food in pirate themed containers.  Use cardboard to make "wooden buckets" around bowls, create miniature treasure chests to hold bowls of macaroni and cheese, Pirate hats can hold chips and pretzels!
• Pirate Boats:  Spread a thin layer of cream cheese (or mayonnaise/mustard) on tortillas and layer with lunch meats and cheeses.  Roll and secure with toothpicks.  Refrigerate for one hour minimum then slice the rolls into 1" pinwheels.  Use "masts" made by gluing a small black triangle to a toothpick for garnish.
• Pirate Ship Pizzas:  Use a french roll sliced length-wise so it looks like a boat and slice out a small amount of the bread so that there is a shallow bowl for toppings to sit without sliding off.  Then have a pizza bar with all the toppings, cheese and pizza sauce and let the kids make their own pirate ship pizzas.  Toast in the oven until everything melts then let sit for 5 minutes to cool. 
• Meat on a stick:  What could be more barbaric than meat on a stick - try shishkabob for something different that isn't sea related, but rather, is pirate related!
• Watermelon Pirate Ship:  Cut a watermelon lengthwise about 1/3 down.  Scoop out watermelon with a melon-baller or spoon.  Add a variety of fruits (including the watermelon) in bite-sized pieces back into the watermelon.  Use stalks of celery to create three "masts" and attach poster board sails with string.  Use a wafer ice cream cone on the tallest center mast for the crows nest.  Fly the Jolly Roger and you've made fruit fun! 

Beverages -

• Pirate Punch:  select the punch of your choice then place your punch bowl on a Jolly Roger place mat and label it with "Pirate Punch".  You can add "jewels" by freezing dark red juice before hand in cubes and then floating your "rubies" in your punch (you can do this with blue or green as well - but make sure the color cube you use matches the underlying color of your punch or as your cubes melt they will discolor your punch and leave it looking somewhat unappetizing!).
• Pirate Brew:  Pirates tend to drink beer or whisky, neither of which really works for our young pirates, so try another frosty beverage in a beer mug - a rootbeer float!  Pour rootbeer half way then add one scoop of ice cream.  Top off with more rootbeer and let the brew foam.  Serve with a long spoon and straw!
• Davy's Death Brew:  This potion is ghoulish enough to be served on the Flying Dutchman!  Combine 2 parts red cherry juice to 1 part club soda.  Then add in gummy worms, peeled white grapes (to look like eyeballs) and chopped apple (to look like teeth). 

Food	Beverages
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Cake

Cakes and Desserts

• Treasure Chest Cake:  Bake two rectangular cakes and layer them with frosting in between.  Shave the sides of the top layer creating an arc.  Frost it with Chocolate frosting.  Use black tube decorators icing and make lines around the cake every 3/4" (creating the illusion of wood that makes a treasure chest.  Create  "lock" on one side in the center with black posterboard and sprinkle gold coins, jewels and necklaces on the serving tray holding the cake.  This is an easy "do it yourself" for even the most novice cake designer!
• Treasure Map Cake:  Bake a large, rectangular cake and frost with Caribbean Sea blue colored icing.  Then use crushed oreo cookies and crushed Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies mixed together to create land masses (create piles on your cake that are the shape of islands).  Use black tube decorator icing to draw your dotted line and "X" on your map and add a few small figures of pirates, a small pirate boat and a palm tree or two!

 

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Entertainment

Entertainment:

• Caricature Artist:  Because this is a party where they kids get dressed up - this is the perfect time to capture that fun with a caricature artist!  Send each child home with a picture of themselves done in a manner that enhances the pirate qualities!  Make treasure map tubes (out of paper towel rolls covered in fun paper) with each child's name.  Your picture slides in th tube and your entertainment becomes your favor! 

Music:

• Try the soundtrack from Pirates of the Caribbean movies!

Activities

• Eye Patches:  Get the kids started by having them make their own eye patches.  Have black poster board, black string and a stencil that they can trace and cut.  Have a yarn sized needle to punch through the poster board to attach the string.  For younger children have adult help.
• Pirate Preparation:  As the guests arrive have a Pirate Preparation station set up where they can get decked out.  Have bandanas, hats, gold earrings, eye patches, tattoos and black face paint for making goatees/moustaches and lining eyes (ala Jack Sparrow!)  Have your designated "photographer" on hand to snap a shot of each completed "Pirate" for later activities or scrapbooking.
• Art - Decorate your own Pirate Sword:  Get black foam or plastic swords and have jewels and glitter to decorate them.  Use quick drying glue so that these swords can then be used in activities later in the party.
• Walk the Plank:    Set out an 8' length of 2X4 wood.  Line the kids up at one end and have them walk straight across the flat part of the wood without stepping off into the sea (you can set the wood on a blue sheet to create the "sea" if you want).  Once they've successfully completed that challenge, you can make it more difficult.   Have them walk the plank sideways, backwards, with their hands behind their back, blindfolded, etc.  When a "pirate" falls into the sea then they are eliminated and are part of the cheering gang of pirates!
• Hide and Seek -with a Pirate Twist!  Split your guests into two teams, the "Hiding" team and the "Finding" team.  The Hiding team has 60 seconds to hide while the Finding team is secluded.  The Finding team heads out to find the Hiding team.  Once a team Hiding team member is found he is "captured" and placed in "Jail", where they stay until a member of the Hiding Team who is still free runs to the jail area and touches the caught member.  The round is over when everyone from the Hiding team is in jail.
• Capture the Pirate Flag:  You need a large, open area (backyard or park), a couple of adult referees, and a group full of kids all dressed with Pirate gear and "swords" divided into two teams.  Each team has its own territory where its members are free to move as they please, but on which opponents enter at their own risk.  Divide the territories by a boundary line.  If a pirate crosses the boundary line they may be captured by the enemy.  You begin with the teams close together at the "starting" point near the center of the boundary line, each team in its own territory.  Then, at "go" the teams have 3 minutes to strategize and set their pirate flags at any point within a certain distance from the boundary line (usually the space is preset and is measured in steps from the starting point).  Flags must be visible, and once it's set, the team members may not come within 20 feet of the flag, unless protecting it from an opposing team member who goes within  the 20 feet perimeter.   At the end of 3 minutes another signal is given to start the game.  The object is not to enter the enemy's territory and capture the flag, carrying it across the boundary line into home territory without being captured.  Pirates may be posted to guard the flag, but again, they may not get nearer than 20 feet to it unless an enemy pirate goes within the 20 foot circle.  They may then follow him in.    Any pirate found in the enemy's territory may be captured by grasping him (on or below shoulder level) long enough for the captor to say "Caught" 3 times.  When a pirate is captured he must go with the captor to Jail - a special designated area on each team's territory.   A prisoner may be released by a team member touching him, whereupon both return to their own territory.  If the rescuer is caught by the guards before he touches the prisoner, he, too, must go to the Jail.  A rescuer can rescue only one prisoner at a time.  If the flag is successfully captured, it must be carried across the line into home territory.  If the raider is caught before he reaches home, the flag is set up again at the point where it was rescued and the game continues as before.  If neither side captures the enemy's flag within time agreed upon (say 1/2 hour) the game is won by the team with the most prisoners.        
• Art - Ocean in a Bottle (younger kids):  Have a bottle and cap for each guest at your party (remove the labels).  Using a funnel, help the kids pour 6 ounces of cooking oil into each child's bottle, followed by six ounces of vinegar.  Let the kids observe the fluids interacting - the oil goes to the top and the vinegar to the bottom.  Then help them add a couple of drops of blue food coloring to the bottles and again let them watch the changes and separations.  Close the caps tightly (use rubber cement inside cap to prevent leaking) for them to take home.  For added fun you can insert a small plastic toy or glitter.
• Hunt for Buried Treasure:  In a sandbox or a pile of play sand add gold coins, pretend jewels and jewelry for them to find.  Provide shovels and let them have fun! 
• Long John Silver Says…  Try Simon Says with a pirate name!
• Pirate Story Time:  For younger children a way to quiet everyone down before cake is to read a pirate story.  But make sure your Story Telling skills are honed, and your Pirate voice is ready!  The more you ham this up the better the kids will love it.
• Pirate Orders:  In this derivation of "Telephone" have the kids sit in a circle and allow the birthday child to think of an order a Captain would give to a deckhand.  He then whispers it to the person to his left and it travels around the circle until it get to the child on the Birthday child's right.  They say it out loud then the Birthday child says what the real message was.  Everyone has fun seeing how the message changed with the telling!
• Guess the Gold:  Fill a char with gold coins and other miscellaneous treasure - have kids guess how many gold coins are in the jar and write down their guesses.  At the end of the party give a prize to the closest guesser.
• Pirate Training:  Train your budding pirates with an obstacle course geared towards life on the sea. 
• Treasure Hunt:  Create a Pirate Treasure Chest and fill it with your party favors!  What a great way to end the party than with a Treasure Hunt to find the party favors!   Create a Treasure Map that contains the first clue to finding the treasure (for example "Treasure calls for pirate loot, look inside an old black boot" or "To find the next clue, all hands on deck… Hurry up before this ship is wrecked") where they will find the next clue and so on.  Finally, the last clue will lead them to a treasure chest filled with Party Favors (ie LOOT!).  Another option is to create a very detailed treasure map that the kids must figure out together to find the treasure. 

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Prizes / Favors

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