How to Host a Pirate Party -- Part 2

We used my pirate manuscript as the "script" for the party and came up with games to fit the situations the pirates got themselves into.

Keep in mind that it was 16 degrees in the Midwest today, and we had 20 kids!

The kids batted around balloons while they waited for the other pirates to arrive. Most of the kids came in pirate gear. We had pirate bandanas for everyone. We divided them into two teams and put color-coded name tags on each kid so they wouldn't forget which team they were on.

We covered the door to the basement with craft paper and decorated it to look like a ship. This was not a fancy party in terms of the decorations. I wanted this to be simple (and in terms of my manuscript, I want it to be something everyone could execute whether it's for a story time or a party.) We had two laundry basket ships! How's that for fancy!?

I read a few stanzas of the story, then we took breaks to play games. After each game, they sat and listened to the story to see which game would come next. A few of our games: canonball fight, walking the plank, swabbing the deck and sword fighting with Captain Chris.