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The Neverland Pirates -4yr- Walk the Plank

September 2011

Lori in Etters, PA USA

Special Mention

Ahoy there!  My 4 year old daughter wanted a Jake and the Neverland Pirates party this summer. Because the show is so new, there is nothing available yet to help in throwing a party. So it ended up being a pirate party with some Jake nuances that I created thrown in.

INVITATIONS - I made the invitations with brown cardstock that I folded in 3s so it was the shape of a treasure chest (fold the top down about an inch & the bottom up about 2-3 inches so they look like the chest & the lid) & decorated it to look like a chest complete with jewel stickers to give it a little bling. When you opened the lid of the treasure chest, inside was a picture of my daughter in a pirate costume & I was able to print a Jake invite from the Disney page that I cut out & pasted inside to include all the party information.

DECORATIONS - Since there was nothing Jake out there for decorations yet I bought some generic pirate decorations (like a banner that said Happy Birthday with Pirate decorations on it (found at Dollar Tree), fish netting to lay across the food table, a string of christmas lights with plastic fish over each light, a blow up parrot & palm tree, etc) as well as red and black balloons & streamers.  Costumes - when the children arrived, I had available for each one a bandana (we found pirate material & cut it into triangles that they could tie on their heads), a sash (from the leftover material), an eye patch & plastic gold hoop earring (both found together in the favors area of Walmart) & a pouch of Pixie dust that I made by cutting a little square of yellow material, put glitter in it & tied a string around it to make a pouch that could be hung around their neck like Izzy wears. I put on them little labels that said Pixie dust w/ a picture of Izzy flying that I found online. I also had Jake tattoos for each of the kids (the kids gym - My Gym - had just gotten them in as they are connected to Disney and were given free samples so we were lucky to get them as this was the only commercial Jake product we used).

PARTY SNACKS - I didn't do anything specific for food to go along with the Jake theme but the plates & tableware were all pirate themed & I found some serving dishes that looked like a fish, etc.

ACTIVITIES AND GAMES - We went on a treasure hunt. I had a letter from Jake that said he had treasure for all the kids but that pesky Captain Hook took it & hid it. So each kid was given a toy telescope & compass & we went all through the backyard following the treasure map I made & had games/challenges along the way (each game had a message from Jake).

These included Pin the hook on Captain Hook - I printed out a picture of Captain Hook using a black & white coloring page of Captain Hook from the Disney site & enlarged it to print on multiple pages & then taped them together then whited out the hook & had copies of the hook for each kid to try & tape on. 

Walk the plank - we placed a wide board over the kiddie pool filled with rubber pirate duckies & crocodiles (both found at the local party store) & they had to walk across it. Searching for Gold Dabloons where I hid gold coins in the sandbox and they had to dig for the gold. 

Pass the parrot - This was a hot potato style game where they passed the blowup parrot (found at the party store) until the music stopped & then the last one standing won the parrot.

Pirate ship boat ride - we decorated the wagon that attaches to our riding mower so it looked like a pirate ship. Six kids at a time fit in the wagon & took a ride into the woods where they found the hidden treasure chest we made by covering up a large milk carton with construction paper & a large box lid stuffed with towels on top and then covered with construction paper to look like the rounded treasure chest lid. This was filled with each of the kids favor bags.

FAVORS - I took plain brown paper bags & printed a label that said Addie's booty bag" (for example) & tied it with twine. The favors included bubbles (found bubbles that had no label & I printed my own that said Jake's bubbles) Hershey's golden nuggets gold coins bead necklaces (like you would get for Mardi Gras) rings Pirate stickers & coloring pages that I printed from the Disney site. I also found a skull & crossbone cutout (made of posterboard type paper) at Michaels & glued her picture in the middle & wrote on the 4 parts of the crossbone "Addie's 4th Birthday 2011" & glued a magnet to the back.

CAKE - I could not find a Jake cake anywhere b/c the stores had not yet received any Jake themed items yet. I was going to get a pirate cake & then add some Jake toys but there weren't even any Jake toys out yet. So I made cupcakes & spray painted them blue& red(there is an edible spray paint in the baking aisle). I then printed pictures of each of the Jake show's characters from the Disney site (I watched the videos online & did screen prints to get each of the characters then copied them into word).

I cut out each picture & laminated each one & then taped it to a popsicle stick that I put in each cupcake. I had a toy pirate ship so I used that to lay the cupcakes on & around.  It was a challenge trying to throw a theme party in which there is nothing that goes along with that theme in stores yet. But by throwing a generic pirate party with Jake thrown in it was a great success. The kids loved it (especially the treasure hunt) & even some of the adults said it was the best party they ever went to!  "

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