Pirate Party Games, Loot, Food and Decorations

My husband, Mark, and I hosted a pirate party at our house on the weekend. We used lots of ideas from the Internet as well as our own to make it an effective yet simple pirate party event.

We had themed food, decorations and games. I used a party/event planner Word document that I developed based on one downloaded from the Internet many years ago.

Food and drink
1. Club sandwiches
2. Octopuses (made from cheerios with cuts in them, blanched in hot water to make the legs bend)
3. Seaweed salad (pasta salad)
4. Sea water (lemon fizzy and lime ice cream spider/punch)
5. Cupcakes (4 types)

• Octopuses (sour worms)
• Buried Treasure
• Lost Gold
• Stranded pirates

6. Japanese curry and sushi
7. Watermelon boats full of chopped fruit
8. Jelly cups with orange ships and flags
9. Fish and chips (crisps)
10. Cannon balls (olives)
11. Polly's Crackers (cheese and crackers)
12. Meat jerky (Twiggy sticks)
13. Pirate Ship Cake!

And more!

Decorations
Pirate theme with classy red, black and white, skull and crossbones and dots

1. Kids were encouraged to dress up of course, which helps set the scene!

2. A wooden climb-in pirate ship was made by Mark

3. Pirate balloons and banners
4. Pirate table decorations

• 3 x plastic skulls from a 'your body' magazine/kit $2 each! Perfect timing
• 3 x glass bottles with messages tied up with string
• white table cloths with black or red with white dot feature cloths on them
• Gold plastic pirate coins
• Happy birthday metallic sprinkles

Games
1. Walk the Plank Rhyme Game
This was as simple as calling out, if you can rhyme with "cat" you get to walk the plank etc.

2. Treasure Hunt
I made two hunts, one for under 5s and one for over 5s. The under 5s had loot bags to dig up and a map showing X's where they could find the loot. Loot included:

• Buccanner plastic coins or chocolate coins
• A pirate themed prize to the value of $2-$5
• Pirate stickers
• Plastic shells and Precious gems (glass rocks)
• Or Pirate loot we found 6 of these at a cheap shop

The over 5s had to work together using a blank map and one clue to start of with. This clue led them to dig up the next clue, then the next, etc. till finally the 5th clue led them to the buried treasure (a box full of toys to the value of $10 each).

Party Favours
1. Wooden sword, hand-made by my Dad for each kid, even with their names on them
2. Treasure/loot bags they had to dig up in the back yard as part of the Treasure Hunt