Budget birthday bash ideas

[Zoemakes5]

Hi all!
Well, my DS2 just started school at a new school, and we moved into a new house in April. When trying to figure out what he wanted to do for his b-day, DS insists that he wanted his "old friends" and his "new friends" (which, apparently today means all his class!).
So, DH and I talked about it and talked with DS and we're having a B-day/House-warming open house for DS's 9th B-day. We're inviting a bunch of friends and family who will be coming and going at various times for various lengths of time. It's a pirate themed b-day
We're doing Hot dogs and sloppy joes, potato salad, pasta salad, and chips. (Happily, other's are offering to bring dishes, and we also have a veggies and mex. dip plate, cole slaw, and maccaroni salad). For drinks I'm doing those big igloo drink coolers with lemonade and punch. (With cups with names on!)
And a big cake.
I'm needing ideas for not very expensive activities that will keep a wide variety of children with varying ages busy and happy and not break me.
I've been scouring the internet for coloring pages for pirates and been pretty successful. Was thinking of putting various little toys and gadgets into the sandbox and letting them have a treasure hunt in the sand. Thought of maybe having a scavenger hunt? We have a parrot pinata. We'll have them decorate "goody bags" for their pinata goodies. My mom thought we could pretty cheaply make up a number of the pirate eye patches.
Ideas?

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

We've done scavenger hunts for each of my kids parties at varying ages and it always goes over well outside. Just draw pictures for the younger group's list. We've also played "I'm sorry but I just can't laugh", a game where players take turns trying to make the others laugh (no tickling allowed). That's alot of fun if you have a big group. You could also do a hula hoop chain. Everyone holds hands and has to get the hula hoop from one end of the chain to theother and back without letting go of hands. Oh, and you could have the kids color pictures of pirates, then play "pin the pirate on the ship" with them using their own pirates (just put a little piece of double-sided tape on the back). We did this with Buzz, pin the buzz on his ship and the kids loved looking for the one they made. Hope that helps!

 

[cinderellamom]

We have done a "joust" or "duel". You get pool noodles (great price on them now if you don't already have them). You get some kind of hat for each kid to wear. The point of the game is knock the other person's hat off with the noodle. To make it interesting depending on children's age, you can put them on chairs or milk crates. We do this with teenagers.

 

[luckey-lasvegas]

Check familyfun for some ideas. I know they had directions to make treasure stones. Maybe you could make a pirate theme obstacle course that invoved climbing on ropes and walking the plank etc. A pirate dressing station would be cute where you could put scarves on thier heads , eye patch over thier eye and a face paint beard. Check oriental trading they have lots of pirate supplies and crafts.

One game we did for my DD birthday was the old fishing game with a magnet on a string. I just cut fish out of fun foam and put a big paper clip on the nose and tail. I painted a refrigerator box to look like the ocean and stamped fish on it. I put a number on each fish the kids but thier lines over the box and pulled up a fish, they then took the fish and matched the number to the prize that they got. I used inexpensive childrens books but you could use anyting for a prize.

 

[christinadei]

Definately check out oriental trading for cheap hats, swords adn eye patches. They also have pirate tatoos and all kinds of other stuff. I love them for parties. I think you should definately have some sort of treasure or scavenger hunt!

 

[luckey-lasvegas]

Sorry I thought of another. How about a pirate joust on a plank raised up a little bit and use pool noodles or pipe insulators to see who could knock the other off the plank. You could put a blue tarp under to act as the ocean.

If your at home take digital pictures of each child dressed as a pirate and then either print at home or have someone run out and print them at a local store for you. If you did a picture frame craft you could put the picture in it as a party gift.

Have fun !

 

[1sttimeWDW]

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[PaulaSue]

Yesterday I saw all kinds of Boys dress up stuff at Dollar Tree. I don't have boys so I don't know what all is there but I think I saw pirate hats and swords.

HTHs