Sometimes, you get so carried away preparing for a birthday party that you end up forgetting one of the elements. Sure, you’ve got a special cake made, decorations taken care of, and an exciting theme in place, but did you remember the games? You’ll have to have games which pertain to that chosen theme and, if the theme is a pirate party, you can breathe a sign of relief. There’s an easy pirate game you can make which will thrill the kids while not taking up much of your time – or budget. Use things you have around the house and you can make a pirate game that kids can play at a birthday party or anytime.
Use cardboard, cardstock, or even printer paper to make circles that will be the pirate faces. Don’t have any of those things? Use paper plates. Just cut the borders off of the plates so that you have just the flat bottoms remaining.
There are different ways to make the pirate game. One way is to allow kids to draw their own pirates. Give each child a round circle (face) and a marker and let them draw the features on as you play the game. Another way is to print out features which children will earn and use to build their pirate faces. Either way, start out by letting the kids draw eyes on their pirates.
Online, you can capture and print out pictures of bandanas, moustaches, eye patches, gold earrings and such, to use for the pirate features. Or, use your drawing program to draw simplistic versions of those things.
Cut squares of paper or use cardstock squares from a craft store. Number the squares 1 through 20 or another set of numbers – depending upon how many kids will be in attendance. Make at least 5 of each number; this will depend upon how many different features kids can win for their pirates. So, if you’ll be giving out a moustache, bandana, eye patch and gold earring for each pirate, you’ll need four of each number. Also, write a number on the back of each paper plate or other face so the child will know what his or her number is.
Mix up all the numbers in a bowl and draw out the first one. The child whose plate has that number will win one of the pirate features, like an eye patch. Continue drawing numbers and allowing the particular child to choose a feature. The child who gets all the features in place first is the winner.
There are different ways to play the game. For example, play the pirate game at school and kids can answer math problems to win a feature. Or, for kids who can’t read numbers yet, try colors instead. No matter how you play the game you’ll see a room full of kids having a great time and winning prizes.