For my son's 6th Birthday he wanted to have an all boy pirate party. For the invitations I traced a map from Peter Pan and hand colored it, on the back we wrote the details of the
party..."Aye, yer mate is turning 6, stop yer pilaging and come to a party. We set sail on (date & time) Captain (name)'s ship is docked at (our address) RSVP to 1St Mates (Mom &
Dad) Sees ya thar!Aarrgh!" We tied the invitations with twine. I made black vests with skull & crossbones out of felt and then I got red bandanas & eye patches (Oriental
trading & birthday express)for each guest. As each child arrived, my husband dressed in pirate attire greeted them at the door & with his best pirate voice asked to see if they were
on the ships log & could come in. Once they checked in I(also in pirate garb) dressed them in their vest,bandana & eye patch. The costumes really helped to set the mood!
Once they were all dressed we had set up a treasure chest decorating area (oriental trading again) which they did until everyone arrived-these became the "goodie bags" at the end of
the party. While the games were going on I filled them with chocolate coins, a small pirate figure, ring pops, candy necklaces, bubbles, tattoos etc. Then we had Pirate Pies(pizza) and
Pirates' Brew(root beer floats). Then we started the games. First we played Pin the X on the treasure map(Birthday express). Next we moved into the living room which was filled with
dark blue, light blue & white balloons (to make it look loke the water) and played cannonball-I drew a picture of a boat on oak tag and made a sail out of paper towel tubes and white
paper, I taped the "boat" to the front of two laundry baskets. Then I made some paper cannonballs. The kids were split into 2 teams & the object was to get as many cannonballs
into the other team's basket in a certain amount of time. The team who lost had to "walk the plank" which my husband built out of wood. Then the team who won had to walk the
plank too just for fun.
Next we played musical islands with felt "islands" placed on the floor using the soundtrack to "Peter Pan" for the music. Then we had a treasure hunt. We separated the boys into groups of two and each pair had to find a piece of the map (I did this to avoid 8 boys running crazy thru my house). My husband, in his best pirate voice, read each clue "My treasure was stolen by Captain Hook, But he left some clues where we can look. Two by two, look far and wide for the parts of his map that he did hide. When put together, four pieces will show Exactly where we have to go...." Each clue had a hint about the room and the place where it was hidden. I had a balloon at the entrance of each room that had a picture attached that matched each place on the map. When we found all four pieces of the map(same one as the invitation) we laid them out on the kitchen floor and went room by room & finally ended up at the room that matched the one on the map with the X. This happened to be the garage & when they opened the door there was a box made to look like a treasure chest filled with a beaded necklace for each guest with a note attached that said "Thank you for helping me find my treasure." Then we had cake & opened the presents I took a picture of each child & my son holding up the gift(this helped with remembering who gave what)& I also included it with the thank you notes. Everyone had a great time!! For the thank you notes I printed up a picture of a treasure chest and above it wrote "Friends are the best treasure" then had my son write a short personal note to each friend. We rolled them up and placed them in a bottle and taped construction paper over the label and wrote "message in a bottle for...". I also included the picture from the party. It was well worth all the effort that went into it and I am very grateful to birthdayideas.com for all the wonderful ideas that went into making a very memorable 6th birthday for my son!
