Easy pirate party for kids pirates theme! Great ideas for pirate party game ideas and kids activities and fun pirate food for kids. Perfect for pirate birthday party, Talk Like A Pirate Day, princess and pirate party, pirate birthday party, Halloween party ideas, and more fun themes for kids!
Children’s Pirate Party Ideas and Fun Pirate Activities
How do you host a pirate party?
What do I need for a pirate party?
- Theme pirate party food / pirate snacks
- Treasure chest favor boxes or pirate loot bags (one of my favorite children’s pirate party ideas!)
- Chocolate coins
- Pirate party favors
- Pirate hats
- Pirate eye patches for all guests
- Stuffed parrot decorations (super fun pirates decoration ideas)
- Other pirates decorations and pirate decor DIY
- Pirate treasure hunt game (with homemade pirate map — see ideas below!)
- Other pirate games for a party
Pirate themed party food, pirates decorations ideas, and more fun pirate ideas below! They work for a pirates party, princess and pirates party ideas, Jake and The Pirates theme, and more to go with your pirate themed food ideas!
Let’s start with one of the best pirate themed party ideas / pirate birthday party games ever — a pirate party scavenger hunt with kids!
How do you do a pirate treasure hunt?
This is one of my favorite ideas for pirate birthday party or parties with pirate themes, so definitely add it to your games for pirate theme party!
- Determine what your treasure chest (or pirate booty) will be as the prize.
- Create (or buy) a scavenger hunt.
- Hide the pirate treasure chest prize.
- Strategically place your treasure hunt clues throughout your home or party area to lead to the treasure chest. (Make sure they’re hidden!)
- Create a treasure map that kids need to follow to go along with the clues.
- Provide pirate costumes or dress-up items to let kids get into character.
- Explain the rules BEFORE the hunt begins.
- Unleash the pirates to find the booty!
Grab a TREASURE CHEST LIKE THIS so everyone can have a piece of the treasure when they find it!
Now onto more of the best DIY pirate party ideas and fun thought pirate themed food for kids!
How do you make a pirate map?
- To age the paper: mix together tea and coffee and sponge onto your paper. Allow it to dry.
- On the prepared paper, hand draw or create a pirate map in an online photo editing or design software. (I like PicMonkey and Canva, which both have free options.)
- Coordinate it with your treasure. If you’re using it for a pirate scavenger hunt, you’ll want the trail to correspond to where the clues or the next map is. Don’t worry about it being perfect or to scale. You just want some dashes for a trail, some smaller X’s for the clues/next maps, and an X marks the spot for the treasure location.
- Add pirate clipart like skull and crossbones, eye patches, hats, swords, ships, anchors, palm trees and more.
- When finished, crumple the map to give it more of a worn look. Sometimes, I like to burn the edges a little to give it more of a battle look. (ONLY ADULTS SHOULD ATTEMPT THIS!)
- Fold or roll the map for the party.
This is one of those super fun pirate decorations ideas to use for your pirate booty treasure hunt!
Kids’ Party Pirate Theme, Pirate Activities & Food For Pirate Parties
1. Pirate Party Food Ideas and Snacks for Pirate Party
The first thing to do is come up with food ideas for pirate party.
It’s fun to include pirate sayings or pirate phrases in your party, especially with the pirate food!
I just used my imagination and renamed some party food favorites and created ultimate pirate party food labels!
I made a fruit salad to look like jewels and called it Pirate Treasure, some chocolate covered brownie bites and called them Pirate Cannonballs, chicken tenders became Walk the (Chicken) Planks, and sub sandwiches became pirate ships with sails on them.
I made them more festive by also sticking some pirate flag toothpicks randomly around in the food.
For the pirate party food labels, I put the names of the dishes on cream-colored paper and burned the paper around the edges to give it an old map kind of feel.
Pirate Party Themed Food Ideas For Kids
- Pirate Pinwheels (tortilla roll-ups)
- Pirate Pond (blue dip with floating Goldfish crackers)
- Pirate Princess Cake (#4, we did a Hello Kitty Pirate cake)
- Pirate Treasure Salad (#6)
- Pirate Cannonballs (#5)
- Octopus Ocean Pirates Food
- Pirate Peg Legs (Pirate Hotdogs)
- Walk the Chicken Planks
- Pirate Ship Sub Sandwiches (pirate sandwiches)
- Dead Man’s Fingers (fun pirate ship food)
- Pirate Punch
- Polly’s Crackers
- Pirate gummies (if you need prepackaged party food for pirate favors)
See full pirate party recipes and pirate theme snacks instructions here!
2. Pirate Theme Decorations and Pirate Decorating Ideas
My daughter actually wanted a Pink Hello Kitty Pirate Princess Party.
As you can imagine, you can’t readily find this theme, so I had to do a lot of pirate decorations DIY.
I printed off some Hello Kitty pirates clipart, cut them into triangle flags and taped them onto a string to make a pirate pennant.
(You can get a plain pirate pennant here.)
We strung the pennant from each side of our chandelier onto the dining room table, which was covered with a black tablecloth to make it appear like a pirate ship.
PARTY TIP: I also love this tablecloth that looks like water. It would be fun to use with this pirate drink boat in the middle to go with the pirate themed snacks!
ALSO CHECK OUT: SIMPLE PIRATE COSTUMES DIY FOR KIDS
I scattered pirate coins, pirate treasure rings, and pirate beads and old skeleton keys all around the table in between the food.
(These didn’t just serve as decorations, we also encouraged the kids to take some of the treasure!)
I also used some party fishing nets around the room and hung plastic spiders and crabs from them.
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that your party will not be a Hello Kitty Pirate Princess Party.
So, you may want to try some of these pirate decorations and pirate party stuff instead:
- Pirate party balloons
- Jake the Pirate party supplies (great for pirate theme party ideas for fans of the cartoon!) and photo background
- Pirate party centerpieces
- Pirate party invitation templates (these are great for a pirates and mermaids party)
- Fun pirate plates and napkins
Don’t forget to create a pirate background for photo opps and pirate decorations party ideas!
Grab some pirate party costume ideas and try out these backdrops and party photo props for pirate theme ideas:
- Pirate birthday backdrop
- Pirate signs
- Pirate photo props (these are super fun!)
- Treasure Island backdrop
- Realistic inside of pirate ship
*There are actually a ton of really cool pirate party photo backdrops on Amazon! Check them out if you want to scroll through them!
DON’T MISS MORE FUN PIRATE IDEAS: Talk Like A Pirate Day Activities for Kids
3. Pirate Party Favors and Pirate Party Bags
For favors, we provided each child with: pirate party hats and pirate treasure chest, filled with things like pirate eye patches, their own pirate treasure maps (this pack of 24 is super cheap), pirate coin necklaces and beads, and treats.
If you don’t want to do treasure chests, I love these treasure map favor bags!
This is also a great set with a huge variety of things to go in favor bags.
It’s also fun to put pirate tattoos and patches pirate in your pirate gift bags!
4. Pirate Party Games and Pirate Kids Activities
Need kids’ pirate party games ideas?
Or course you’re going to have pirate birthday games or pirate party games for kids (and they can be fun for all ages)!
We did a couple of games that the kids of all ages really had fun playing (and even pirate themed games the adults enjoyed) .
Instead of pin the tail on the donkey, we did a pirate version of pin the treasure on the map. You can also do X marks the spot on the map or pin the eye patch on the pirate.
The biggest hit of the party (kids and adults), though, was the pirate scavenger hunt game, so DEFINITELY do a scavenger hunt for treasure (and this one looks really fun!).
You can easily make your own make your own treasure scavenger hunt as one of your pirate theme games!
Pirate Party Games Ideas and Pirate Party Activity Ideas
- Pirate bag toss
- Skull King pirate card game
- Pirate escape room
- Pop Up Pirate
- Pick out your pirate names or have a pirate name generator names for a pirate. (These are fun pirate name signs for the tables.)
- Have pirate jokes on the tables (nothing like pirate jokes for kids!)
- Play pirate songs and music for pirate party
- Have pirate talk / pirate language cards — especially fun if you’re having a talks like a pirate day party!
- Do a pirate hat drawing or have a pirate crafts table (these pirate stickers crafts are great for younger kids)
5. Pirate Movies for Kids
You can also add a pirate kids’ show to your party.
PARTY TIP: I always like to have a quiet corner at parties with a movie softly playing (or quiet music). That way if some kids are feeling overwhelmed they can retreat there to have some quiet time.
Try these fun pirate themed movies for kids:
- Pippi Longstocking
- The Pirates! Band Of Misfits
- Treasure Planet
- Adventures of TinTin
- The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie
- Peter Pan
- Jake & The Pirates Cartoons
FUN FOOD IDEAS TO GO WITH PIRATE PARTIES: Shark Party Snacks Kids Will Love!
What other pirate party for kids, pirate games and pirate ideas should we add to our theme?
LOOKING FOR FUN COOKING PRINTABLES FOR KIDS?
