Ahoy Hearties! Do you have a pirate fan in your life that has a birthday or celebration coming up? This party has some awesome pirate themed games, activities, and more! Read through to check out some of our budget-friendly, low-prep ideas 🙂
DECORATIONS
Pirate parties are a great theme that can have quite a few different variations (Typical pirate parties with pirate themed decor, nautical decorations, Halloween twists, etc…). So depending on the time of year you’re having the party, you can get very creative!
For this party, we opted for a traditional pirate style theme (with blues and pirate ships) as well as a mix of some nautical pinks: Nautical Girl Anchor Garland, Nautical Girl Hanging Fans.
And for just a bit of fun, we printed out a few ‘pirate phrases’ which had everyone talking like pirates 🙂
THE PHOTO AREA
Photo backdrops are a great way of setting a theme and double as a nice and easy activity! Pick a backdrop that functions as decorative, add a few props to the scene and you’ve got a great place to hang out!
There are definitely some nice photo backdrops out there to purchase: Nautical Life Buoy Backdrop, Nautical Style Backdrop Mariner just to name a few 🙂
Alternatively, if you have some extra time, you can make your own with a trip to the Dollar Store or grabbing some items around the house! For our Shiver Me Timbers: Pirate Week, we created a pirate ship out of cardboard on our intro day and set that against our Vintage World Map Backdrop. Otherwise, you could also hang up some plastic blue table covers (or tissue paper), add some sea creatures, and you have a perfect ocean backdrop!
Note, you don’t have to go all out with a photo backdrop stand either. Grab a few pieces of tape and an empty wall & you’re all set!
THE TABLE(S)
Rather than have one decorated table, we had two!
Our first table was a bit more nautical pink themed: Nautical Girl Dinner Plates, Nautical Girl Luncheon Napkins, Nautical Girl Cups, Nautical Girl Confetti.
Our second table was more pirate-themed. We borrowed a few of the pirate ships we created from our Shiver Me Timbers: It’s Pirate Week – Spectacular Pirate Ships Day with some treasure hunts filled with gold nuggets and coins!
PARTY FOOD
No party is complete without some party food! You can always serve some typical (or fancier) party food, but you can also keep in theme with a few clever labels 🙂
For our food & drink table, we created mini pirate ships to hold the labels – the boats are pretty easy to make if you follow any of the simple origami steps. Otherwise, you could also use a few mini cups and add some flags.
- Cannonballs – Meatballs, Cheeseballs
- Krakens – Trolli Octopus
- Polly the Parrot’s Crackers – crackers
- Gold – Cheese Balls
And a few obvious others that fit the them:
- Fish & Chips
- Pirate Booty
ACTIVITY TABLES
We typically set up an activity table for kids to keep entertained while everyone arrives AND after all the games are done. These activities are simple and easy and typically don’t require too much supervision.
- Wood Shape Painting: Wood shapes are always a quick & easy activity to set up. Paint pens or markers are less messy than actual paint too 😉 If you’re throwing this party around summer, chances are there are some nautical themed crafts at the Dollar Tree – similar to the sailboat ones we used here 🙂 Otherwise, you can definitely find a few variety packs online (45 Pack Unfinished Nautical Wood Cutouts for Crafts, 30 PCs Anchors)
And a few more ideas just for fun:
GAMES
What’s a party without some fun and memorable games??? Kids will definitely have fun just running around and coming up with their own games, BUT adding in a few themed games will definitely be a hit with your guests! Here were a few of ours.
For this party, we used a few ‘Pirate Phrases to describe the games 😉
- Walk the plank: Everyone knows what a plank is and that pirates can make you walk it!. Most of us don’t have boats with planks but that doesn’t mean you can’t create a ‘version’ of one 😉 lay down a large blue blanket or table cover and a long piece of wood (or some brown construction paper taped together). Kids can take turns ‘walking the plank’. For harder variations, have some other kids play crocodile and try to tag the plank walker before they get to the end.
- Crow’s Nest: The crow’s nest is an area where pirates would lookout to see far distances. For this game, we had binoculars in the ‘crow’s nest area’ (though if you have a spyglass, that would be way more cool). Then we had some pirate hat – printouts – visible from that spot. Each pirate had to count as many as they could see. Alternatively, you could use real pirate hats or other items that signify pirates as well.
- Fire in the Hole: “Fire in the hole” is a saying that pirates would use as a warning when they fired cannons. There’s quite a few variations that you could do with this depending on how many kids you have or how competitive they may be but essentially the objective is to get the ‘cannons’ (black balloons, foam balls, pom poms) into buckets or across the lines to the opposite pirate ships/areas.
- Buckets – these are easiest. Similar to a carnival game, set the buckets further apart from each other and have each ‘pirate’ start tossing the ‘cannons’ into buckets.
- Pirate Ships – split the party into two sets of pirate crews and separate them by some space. If you have the extra time, you can build up some pirate ships using some cardboard or extra budget to purchase some DIY Pirate Ships. Each pirate crew needs to simultaneously defend their ship from cannon balls while also trying to toss cannonballs into the other crew’s ship!
- Fill the coffers – In pirate lingo coffers were chests to be filled with treasure. This one can be played all together (filling one treasure chest) OR teams filling their own.
- Grab the Booty – booty in pirate lingo means treasure! Last but not least, hand out goodie bags or set out a treasure chest pinata!
And while we didn’t have these games at our party, you could also add these in for some more party fun:
GOODIE BAGS & GIVEAWAYS
What’s a party without a few giveaways 🙂 Treasure chests, gold coins, chocolate coins, goldfish, and pirate booty are perfect to end off the day! We filled a few Burlap Gift Bags with some chocolates and coins 🙂
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you so much for checking out our party article. We hope this has helped with your party planning and maybe even inspired more ideas!
If you’re looking for more ideas, feel free to check out our other posts on Shiver Me Timbers – It’s Pirate Week, Pirate Ideas, or other Parties and follow us on Pinterest.
Happy Party Planning!
