2742

Pirate Adventure 3yr - Pirate Adventure

March 2001

Dolly in Castro Valley, Ca., USA

Runner-Up

Pirate Adventure Party- 3 year old  For my son's third birthday, we had a Pirate Adventure theme. On heavy card stock, I printed (with "valiant" font- looks English/old-style)an invitation poem that read "Ahoy there matey! Pirate Captain Evan is turning three! So join us for a Pirate Birthday Party! He needs shipmates to swab the deck, walk the plank and hunt for the long, lost treasure. A sailor's lunch and a pirate cake will also be there for your pleasure! Please say you'll come for a swashbuckling fun Pirate Birthday Adventure! We set sail on- the date. Captain Evan's Pirate Ship is docked at- our address. RSVP Pirate Co-Captains- parents and phone number." On the top of each invitation was a picture of my son in a Pirate Captain costume (I made this costume for him for Halloween- red velvet coat, gold sailor buttons, lace collars) and next to him was the Fisher Price toy Pirate Ship and a stuffed animal parrot. On the envelopes, I put some pirate stickers & printed the children's addresses and my sons return address with the same font and tore the edges of the crème paper to look "old."

We decorated the house with black and purple streamers on the stairway and fireplace and 50 black and gold helium balloons tied with gold ribbon. We also had the toy pirate ship decorate the food table and a big pirate ship toy box (today's kids)in the middle of the family room for the kids to play on/with. Signs were posted at the door, "Ahoy there matey- Welcome to Evan's Pirate Birthday Adventure!" I didn't want the children going upstairs during the party so we gated the stairs off and put a sign that read, "Upper deck closed due to storm wreckage. Pirate Adventure fun on lower deck matey!" We had a music Cd on of sailing sounds from the ocean in the beginning. We had eight 21/2-3 years olds attend- perfect size party for this age!

As each child arrived to the party, they received a black bag decorated with a picture of a  treasure chest and parrot- an invitation card from a party store.  I covered the party wordings from the card (party for whom, when, where) with the cream torn edged paper with each child's name printed in the same font that read " Evan's Pirate Garb." In each black bag, the kids found their pirate shipmate costumes- a black pirate vest (I sewed out of felt-cheap and easy), a red and white striped fabric sash to tie around your head or waist, an eye patch, and a telescope (toilet paper roll with black paper around it). After the kids dressed up, I took pictures of them with my mini-sticker Polaroid camera. I stuck the mini picture on the front of a clear plastic treasure chest (dollar store) that the kids had to decorate with jewel stickers (girls little stick on earrings).

Activities were "Walk the plank across crocodile lake" where each child walks across a balance beam and the other children pretended to be crocodiles by clapping their hands. "Hook for Treasure"- I placed Mardi Gras beads in a small wooden chest and each child took turns using a plastic pirate's hook (from Halloween) to hook a necklace that they got to keep. "Swab the deck"- We took the big pirate ship toy box and placed plastic food on top of it. I asked the kids if the ship was clean and they said "No!" Each child took turns swabbing/cleaning the deck by sweeping the mess off with a little broom. Next was the Pirate Oath from my son, which he repeated after me, and they repeated after him- "I promise to be a friendly pirate and help Captain Evan through any endeavor!" Afterwards, they danced to some pirate tunes- Captain Feathersword and Friendly Pirate Ship- the Wiggles; Yo, ho, Yo, Ho a Pirates life for me- from Disneyland. During lunch, I turned on a Dora video where she hunts for treasure. This way, it was guaranteed that the kids would sit down together and have lunch.

For lunch, the kids had little black lunch bags with Pirate Patch PB&J sandwiches- circle shaped, peg legs- carrots, goldfish crackers and ocean with sunken treasures- blue Jell-O with diced peaches. I put these in recycled individual applesauce containers and topped them each off with a plastic pirate ship.  The kids loved them! The parents had pirate pinwheel sandwiches, canon balls- grapes, red rubies- strawberries and treasure salad (had dried cranberries, golden raisins and pecans)and everyone had pirate punch. After lunch, we opened gifts, then had 2 cakes. One cake had the same picture from the invitation of Evan in his Pirate Costume scanned on top of the cake- the scanned picture is edible too. The other cake was decorated half water, half land and I placed a little Playmobile Pirate set (pirates, a boat, treasure chest, tree) to decorate it.

My friend read the children a pirate story while I hid the treasure for the treasure hunt. When the story was done, my son did one last activity which was fish for treasure. With his toy fishing pole, he reeled up a clear plastic bottle (empty water bottle)that had plastic gem rings for each child and a message. It read, "If you want to find more treasure, follow the clues with fun and pleasure." Since the kids were 3 years old or close to 3, I had them find color clues using their black telescopes leading to the treasure. Clues read, "Keep looking my sunny fellow, the next clue is the color- YELLOW." The kids had to find the yellow paper that I taped in the family room and on that paper was the next clue- for this bright color, I can not find a rhyme, but it's the color of pumpkins at Autumn time- ORANGE." On the orange paper was the next clue and so on, until they found 6 colors and the last color clue read- "All the colors are beautiful beyond measure, and when friends work together, we'll find the treasure! Line up colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue,& purple, now you're getting warm, it's something lovely after a pirate storm." We lined up  the colored papers and the children shouted, "it's a rainbow!" I told them we needed to find a rainbow.

They looked around and in the living room was a huge box. On the side of the box, I drew a pirate ship on the ocean with a rainbow. My son helped color it. When the kids saw the box with the rainbow on it, they were so happy- "We found the rainbow!" Then the kids opened the box and helium filled balloons- all 6 rainbow colors flew up to the high ceiling. There were also air filled balloons in the box that the kids had to dig up to get to the big treasure chest- made from a medium sized cardboard box. The kids were so excited shouting, "The treasure, oh my gosh, we found it! We found it!" Inside the treasure box were the clear plastic treasure chests filled with toy jewelry and little clear cellophane bags of gold and money (gold candy coins, gold Hershey kisses and nuggets and pretend money). On the cellophane bags of gold was a tag with a pirate ship that read "thank you matey for helping me find the lost treasure and for celebrating my third birthday with us! Your Pirate Captain Evan." Favors- Each child took home their bag of Pirate Garb, their jewel treasure chest filled with jewelry- necklaces, rings, toy watches..., a bag of gold candy and money and a gold and black helium balloon. Since this was a 3 year old party, I wanted win-win activities that the children could do together and surprisingly all the children were able to do each activity. The overall theme of the party was working together and friends are the best treasure of all! The kids and adults had so much fun at this party and my son had the greatest time being Captain! It didn't take a lot of money but it did take a lot of time and planning. I can't wait to plan for Evan's 4 year birthday party next year!

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