Pirates Ahoy Party

A couple of weeks ago my boys were invited to a friends Pirate Party. It was so much fun,so full of Pirate activities, games and fun that I wanted to share it with you.

As we arrived at the gate we knew we were in Pirate Land!

Ahoy Me Hearties it's the Captain Birthday Boy!

My two little Prates were so excited about the day.....

Playing with some big and little Pirates!

Pretend playing with our Pirate friends!

We even walked the plank ....

What fun it was having a three-legged race!

We went fishing for treasure!

We pinned the treasure on the map!

We had a treasure hunt and finally found the treasure!

We had some face-painting and tattoos!

Love the pirate swords in the fruit!

Pirate sausages in bread and fish fingers with sauce, just what a pirate needs!

Pirate Pizzas!

Tiny Teddy Pirates on their ships!

And of course a cake fit for a Pirate!

Loved the treasure chest loot boxes!

All Pirates at the party received an eye patch and a bandanna to take home too!

A Pirate's Adventure

Master 5 really enjoys the opportunity to construct things using boxes, containers and pretty much anything else he can source from the house (or his Nan's). Today we have had a Pirate Day at home and along with Master 3 have been busy doing lots of Pirate crafts. While Master 3 had is daytime nap today, Master 5 asked if he could have the empty milk container sitting on the sink to make a pirate ship. He likes time on his own to work on these little projects without any interruptions from his younger brother.

We cut the plastic milk bottle down to look like a ship and then I left him to it ......

Here's master 5 busy putting some Pirate play figures into his ship with blu-tac.

This is a little box that he wrapped in baking paper and decorated with gems from the craft box.

Love the tiny telescope at the rear of the ship! He has rolled a tiny piece of baking paper and used sticky tape to attach it.

Every Pirate Ship needs a plank and a sail!

He has decorated the sides by sticking on mosaic pieces left over from another craft activity and cutting out pictures of pirates from some cheap cards we had.

I love this. Here Master 5 has scrunched up some baking paper to make an island and stuck a plastic palm on it. He told me this is where the treasure is hiding! Ahoy!

Polly Want A Cracker?

Last week Master 3 picked up this library book on our weekly visit and asked me to read it to him this morning. It is a lovely book, and gave us the chance to talk about the many different types of birds we know and see on a regular basis. There has been the ongoing topic of swooping magpies in our house since being attacked while out riding a couple of weeks ago. The boys and I had a good look at pictures of parrots on the Internet. I like to use the Internet with them occasionally, particularly for a simple task like searching Google Images for a particular picture.

We decided to look through the craft box and see if we still had a collection of coloured feathers and make a parrot.

This is a very simple yet effective craft activity that both the boys really enjoyed. All you need is some paint, PVA glu and coloured feathers from the discount store.

The boys painted a parrot. I left Master 5 to paint his own, however did draw a rough outline for Master  3 to guide him.

Then I gave them both some coloured feathers and PVA glue and left them to decorate the parrot.

Treasure Hunt

With International Pirate Day coming up on the 19th September we are embracing all things PIRATES in our house until then. We started our Pirate Adventure last weekend when the boys went to a friend's 5th Pirate Party. Their enthusiasm for all things Pirates has been lots of fun and I plan on sharing all of our activities with you over the next couple of weeks.

I don't always buy costumes for the boys, however we seem to have a number of Pirate parties coming up so for $12 from K Mart I purchased these. Generally, the boys use their imaginations and put together costumes from our dress-up box.

Even something as simple as these off cuts of material from spotlight are great to put on as bandannas for Pirate role-play.

Pirate stickers are available from most discount stores and are great to use for craft activities.

All pirates need a telescope! I covered two empty paper towel rolls with colored paper. The boys then happily decorated them with marker pens and stickers. Mmmm what else does a pirate need?? Treasure of course, but where is that treasure? Well let's make a treasure map.....

To stain our treasure map we put some coffee in a bowl and added a small amount of water.

Use some cotton wool and wash over the paper with the coffee.

** I burnt the edges of the paper using a lighter to give the treasure map look. I did this when the boys were not around as I didn't want them to see me lighting the paper.

Often it's hard to set up activities for children of different ages and stages of development. This activity was perfect as both Master 3 and Master 5 were able to work independently on their map. We have been reading a number of our favourite Pirate books and looking at Pirate maps so the boys were very keen to draw their own maps and add the stickers.

Ahoy Me Hearties I'm off to find some treasure!

A telescope in hand, a piece of material on their head as a bandanna and a detailed treasure map in hand the hunt began!


Below are some of our favourite Pirate Stories .....