Pirate Activities / Party Ideas
A local forum for parents, North Leeds Mumbler, asked me if I would like to host a stall at their annual family fun day and before thinking too much about it and talking myself out of it I said yes! The event is aimed at a broad range of ages - 0 to 12 years - so I decided to theme my activities around pirates as there is so much you can do with this for younger & older children. You could use these ideas for a pirate party, a pirate theme in a setting or just to keep a pirate-loving youngster occupied!
I had a mixture of messy play and crafts going on. These were the different activities;
1) Sea tray - messy/sensory play
I received some lagoon blue Gelli Baff from Zimpli Kids to use at the event. I put it over a sea tray liner and topped it with sea creature bath toys and a couple of fishing games - the hook a shark was from Poundworld and worked surprisingly well. It was sturdier than I'd expected and lasted well given the large amount of young children playing with it! This was probably the most popular activity, the children absolutely loved the feel of the jelly like substance and stayed at this tray a really long time running their hands through the jelly and moving round the toys. My children really enjoyed setting up this tray too, pouring the powder into the water, swishing it round with their hands and marvelling at the changing texture as they mixed it together.
2) Sand tray - desert island hunt for treasure
I buried several pom poms in a tray of sand, attached some tweezers round the edge of the tray using elastic and insulation tape, added some home-made pirates & boats and a sign asking if they could help the pirates find their buried treasure. If they could find 5 jewels, they could swap them for a cardboard sword to decorate. This gave the tray some focus but actually most children were happy just playing in the sand anyway!
The pirates were wooden peg dolls, I got 30 for £6 from eBay and decorated them with permanent markers. I painted them with watered down pva glue before decorating to stop the pens bleeding on the wood and then painted them with pva glue afterwards as a varnish. The red ran on a couple when I varnished them but most were fine.
I made boats from cardboard and microwave meal tubs (don't judge me, my oven is broken! 😏). A lollypop stick stuck into a blob of play doh made a mast and I added portholes and an anchor with a pen.
I printed out some pirate themed printables from Happy Learners Resources and stuck the counting ones around this tray to tie in with counting the jewels.
3) Junk Modelling - Build a Pirate Ship
I filled an area with different sized cardboard boxes and put up a sign saying 'Can you make a pirate ship?' Porthole pictures from Happy Learners were stuck to some. I had made a flagpole by attaching a flag to a wrapping paper tube and then cut holes in several of the boxes so it could be inserted into various size boxes.
We had some fabulous looking boats, including several by my son, he loved it! 😂 Will be doing more of this at home!
4) Make your own Pirate flag
I made several 'skull & crossbones' templates with bunny, cat and bear designs to choose from as well as the traditional style. They could draw round the template on a sheet of coloured paper, decorate it however they wished and then attach it to a wooden stick `(flagpole!) with sellotape et voila!
5) Communal picture project
I put out a 4 foot strip of paper (I a big roll of paper from Ikea) with waves printed along the bottom with some pens & crayons next to it and a sign inviting them to add what they wanted to the pirate picture.
I painted blue waves onto bubble wrap and then pressed it down onto the bottom edge of the paper, creating a bubbly, foamy effect.
Here's the finished artwork! 😊🙌
6) Draw a Pirate
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