Shirley's party advice part 5 - Here to Help - come and say Hi

[Blatherskite]

Didn't notice we'd gotten to the end of the thread!

DS would LOVE that cake... oh I have cake envy! He v much likes Captain Jack.

Stairs- let us come back to you in the morning but we've done pirate party ideas loads. If you want ideas before the morning look for our previous thread and im sure we tackled it early on.

I'm not in a hurry so will keep checking this thread. Thank you!

And I'll try and find the previous thread too.

some cool craft ideas - my DC have also done cool crabs and octopi from paper plated.

try this thread stairs we did some good links etc too

We had a pirate party last year for four year olds - I'll have a look at what we did and post tomorrow!

I found the running order for our pirate party, so here it is:

Guests arrive and go to the Pirate Cove and get ready for their pirate adventures - we had a table with small foam pirate hats and tiny foam swords (very cheap from tesco), jewels (cheap plastic rings from amazon/ebay), small eye glasses (can't remember where from - party bag filler size) pirate tattoos and pirate face paints (I bought a set of pirate face paints and parents did their own kids). They also decorated their own party bags with stickers and stick on jewels (the spy glass, hats swords etc forming the bulk of the party bags).

Matching pairs (this was in lieu of a treasure hunt as it was in a hall) - take the spy glass and find the matching pair to your card to win a gold dubloon (used a pirate snap game, gave everyone one card and they had to find the pair - gold dubloons from ebay)

Pass the booty - pass the treasure chest (everyone got a prize - cheap pirate party filler type things from ebay/yellow moon etc)

Musical islands - swim among the islands (pictures printed, laminated and placed on the floor) and find one when the music stops - if no islands left move on to pin the flag on the treasure map (to give the kids something to do once they were out)

Pin the flag on the treasure map

Sleeping pirates - grown up dressed as a pirate - they have to try and creep up to him and steal his treasure (he had a bag of doubloons). If the sleeping pirate wakes up ?arrrr, who?s stealing me treasure? they have to freeze. Keep going until they?ve all got some treasure.

says... The pirate would say one of these and they would have to do the actions - it took a few practice goes

The captains coming - salute and shout aye, aye captain
Climb the rigging - pretend to climb a rope ladder
Port - run to the left
Starboard - run to the right
Hit the deck - lie on your stomach quickly
Man overboard - jump, holding your nose with 1 hand raised
Sharks in the water - hand in front of face like a shark fin walk around

Then we sang 'When I was one....' with all the actions

We had pirate themed food which I'm struggling to remember, but if you look on one of these previous threads (around this time - June last year) I'm sure it's all on there (though I've name changed since then). I did do the watermelon that blathers linked to with blue jelly. It was easy and looked fab.

We also had this photo prop, lots of pirate balloons, pirate bunting and a big pirate flag for decoration.

Hopefully thats enough stairs?

Citybranch do you need more seaside ideas?

I went to bed dreaming of pirate parties last night!

Some ideas running through my head:

Swap party bags for small, cardboard pirate chests (you could buy these but I bet they'd be easy enough to make too) Fill with chocolate gold coins, candy necklaces, midget gems, jelly rings and then Tesco do really cheap packs of mini spyglasses (3 for £1 I think) and eye patches you could add in too.

DS went to a party a few weeks ago where they played a version of a game that I think is usually called bulldog? The kids have to run from one end of the room to the other without being caught by a "shark" otherwise they become one too (the first shark can be an adult to get things going) Keep going until you have 2 or 3 winners who get a prize - maybe a pirate bandana or a flag?

I see DT also has a load of brilliant pirate games which sound like fun.

That melon shark I liked to above would work well for food, as would the shark infected jellies. You could swap the sails for red stripes and jolly rogers on the hotdog boats above too. You could make the spaghetti octopuses that seem to be popping up on my Facebook feed daily at the moment! This octopus dip would be really good too.

infected? I meant infested!

Playing British Bulldog (or variants) is a brave decision at a party - I would be paranoid about slippy floors and bumped knees/elbows. The only party DS has played it at is a regular summer party held at a cricket ground - they play cricket and then they play British Bulldog at the end for as long as assorted fathers can keep it up!

citybranch - how about these as the basis of seaside party invitations?

DS and his friends have played varients at the last 3 parties without problems. The middle party had islands instead of sides but the running around grabbing each other bit was still there.

They got more hurt doing another game where they had to drag each other along in pirate ship decorated boxes. I would not recommend that one!

at work but just read, some great ideas thanks and ill check the other thread tonight! You lot are brilliant!

She's one of us

Cool - and yet not as ludicrously OTT as some American super-mom parties

That is amazing mario party!!!

I considered a Mario theme for DS's birthday. Will have to wait until next year now

I am mentally trying to re-stage that party in a village hall with lousy weather outside. It would be tricky.

Go on then, on a "never too soon" basis, what shall I persuade DD that she wants for 7th birthday in October?

October! Hmmm, Alice in Wonderland? How to train your Dragon? Halloween-y?

Stairs, I found the food menu from our pirate party:

Grub & Grog:
Cutty Sark sarnies (using pirate ship cutter)
Cutlass cheese biscuits (nigella's cheese biscuit recipe, using cutlass sword type cutter)
Peg leg veg (carrot batons etc)
Cap'n blueberry muffins
Jelly rodger boats (from Fay Ripley book - I didn't do these in the end though because I had the watermelon shark and blue jelly)
Buccaneer brownies (brownies with sails in on cocktail sticks)
Cannonballs (melon balls - didn't do, but liked the idea!)
Ruby treasure (strawberries)
Apple Grog

I must get back to Star Wars planning soon! I wonder if I can use blue jelly again!

We did dragons last year . My default position is science ATM.

DT I think you need some of http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/s/ref=pd_sl_2dw8eq4ebg_b?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Astar+wars+ice+cube&keywords=star+wars+ice+cube&ie=UTF8&hvnetw=g&tag=hydrukspg-21&hvadid=16275258327&hvptwo=&hvpone=&hvpos=1t2&hvrand=17961194581489303149&hvexid=&hvqmt=be these - definitely work with fondant for cake toppers, might work with jelly too?

Not much help on 7 year old I'm afraid. Love the sound of an Alice in Wonderland party though!