Pirate party for 5 y-o girl

[catnip]

My daughter has asked for a pirate themed party for her 5th birthday.

I'm planning to try to make a treasure-chest birthday cake topped with chocolate coins, a treasure hunt, piratey music for dancing, piratey coloring sheets. Any other brainstorms? We're doing the party at home, and the budget is limited.

Last year we did a "Fairy tale" theme and let the kids make chocolate dipped pretzel rods as "Magic wands." They were such a hit that I'd love to repeat that activity if I can figure out how to rebrand it with a pirate theme.

We're a homeschooling family, so her friends are all over the board in age, 3 to 11.

[dawncayden]

We are having one for our 4 year old son on the 17th.

We are providing pirate hats and eye patches for the 6 kids. Face painting (beard stubble and scars), maps will be handed to each child to find a sack of chocolate coins, craft is painting and glueing jewels on a wooden box for their treasure box, a pirate story will be read.
We are having a pirate ice cream cake, pizza, veggie platter and pirate booty.

I'm going to make a huge pirate flag to hang on the wall and I was going to find large rope to decorate with but I don't think I have time.

The party is 2 hours...I think we might need more time to do everything

[pianojazzgirl]

Sounds like fun! My 5 yr old dd is really into pirates too. I'll be watching this thread for ideas. I could see her liking the idea of a pirate party for her next b-day.

[ledzepplon]

Do you have a sandbox? Some friends of ours had a pirate party for their little guys and they buried "treasure" in the sandbox--such as plastic gold coins, mardi gras beads, etc in the sand and let the kids hunt for treasure. It was a big hit.

They also served "Pirate's Booty" (the puffed popcorn) as a snack.

You could call the pretzels "chocolate swords."

You could make pirate hats out of newspaper--tutorials are on the internet.

Or a beanbag toss into a bucket, and call it "sink the ship."