Our first Pirate Party

Our oldest son James was just four years old, but he had a classful of new schoolmates and we wanted to give him the best party ever.
Being new to organising parties, we really went overboard but we had the most swashbuckling fun and did as much as we could ourselves.

Our lounge was just about big enough (once we'd moved all the furniture out - yes we really did this...) and we found some old blue and cream sheets and duvet covers which we placed on the floor to represent the sea and a beach. After hunting round in our attic, we managed to source two old inflatable dinghys and some oars, and there we had our first game - when the music stopped, everyone was told to either get on the beach, in the sea, or in a boat - last one there was out! The kids absolutely loved these boats and we used them for several more games - they even wanted to sit in them to eat their food!

We asked everyone to make an effort dressing up and we said we'd give a prize to the best boy and best girl's costume, which encouraged everyone to join in. Pirate costumes are so cheap and easy to make from cut-down jeans and stripey t-shirts. We were well impressed with the turn-out and found it difficult to judge. Nearly everyone had bought along a sword (which we collected together at the beginning for safety reasons!) but we all had great fun and took a picture of each child dressed up on their own, which we later gave them a copy of after the party with the thankyou letters.