Pirate Party For my son's 5th birthday he chose a "Pirate" theme. For invitations we used store bought pirate theme cards which are available in most stores. As the kids arrived we encouraged them to "go fishing" in our "pirate boat". We had cut out pictures of fish (at least 4-5 inches long), covered them with contact paper, and put paper clips on their mouths. These were placed on the ground around a "Little Tikes" boat we already had in the back yard. In the boat were wooden dowels, each with a string taped to one end and a magnet attached to the end of the string. As you guessed the fish are caught by touching the magnet to the paper clip. Plastic buckets were in the boat to collect their catch. Once all the kids had arrived we made swords. On a table we provided cardboard cut-outs of a "pirate" sword for each child -the kind with a curved edge. They covered these with aluminum foil. For the handle, two 4 inch pieces of "half-round" wooden trim were placed on each side of the 'sword' and wrapped with a pre-cut piece of twine and tied. Parents had to help with the wrapping and tying. Once they were finished they had fun playing with them. We also played pin the Patch on the Pirate, using a poster board with a picture of a pirate I drew (head and shoulders only), my son had fun coloring it before the party. For a cake I made his favorite -dirt salad- with plastic pirates and gummy worms stuck in the "dirt". Our drink was blue Kool Aid. Once the presents were open we noticed a mysterious "bottle" with a map inside. The map was made out of a wrinkled-up piece of muslin with burnt edges. I drew the map on the fabric with a "sharpie" pen copying (sort'a) a toy map my son already had. I printed a poem on it which told of a "treasure", guiding them through our yard and ending up in our flower bed. He and his guests could hardly wait to follow the clues and find this treasure. With little help from us they knew exactly where to dig. They uncovered an old, small tool box with a lock (Key was in the bottle). Once they opened it they discovered everyone's goodie bags, gold painted rocks and pearl necklaces -readily available in Louisiana since they throw them off the floats at Marti Gras. The kids couldn't wait to get their hands on that treasure, I think they were more excited about the rocks & pearls than anything. They all departed happy and satisfied.