5 Creative Ways To Assemble Teams For A
Pirate Treasure Hunt

Planning a pirate themed treasure hunt for larger groups can sometimes necessitate the forming of small groups or teams that must work together to complete the hunt. With some crowds it's best to allow the participants to choose their own teams. For party guests that aren't well acquainted with each other, it can be best to employ other methods for assembling the groups or teams. Here are five creative ways to randomly form teams, each keeping within the pirate theme.

Create pirate ship crews. Random drawings can sometimes be the quickest solution. Make it fun by writing down multiple names of pirate ships on small pieces of paper. Make sure there isn't more than one piece of paper in the 'hat' than there are participants. If you'd like four participants to a team, then write down four copies of each pirate ship. Possible ship names might include "S.S. Treasure Seeker" or "The Grim Reaper". When it's time to assemble the teams, have each person draw a piece of paper from the hat. They are then responsible for finding their other fellow 'crew mates'. Once their crew is assembled, they are ready to head out on the treasure hunt! If you are asking each team to choose a leader for the group, make sure to refer to them as the ship captains.

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A variation on the above is to write down other types of random pirate phrases on different pieces of paper. Once everyone has drawn a piece of paper, all of the "Argh's" will form a team, all of the "Shiver me timbers" will form another team, etc. Now, the fun part is that the ONLY way that the participants are allowed to find their fellow team members will be to say their pirate phrase out loud for everyone to hear! With everyone saying their pirate phrases at once, it can be hilarious to watch!

For smaller groups you might consider pairing the participants. To quickly match up random couples, take several different pirate words (the longer the word the better) and write half of the word on one piece of paper and the other half of the word on another. Each participant will then pull out one piece of paper. Once all of the papers have been drawn, each participant will then mingle about the room looking for their 'other half' to complete the pirate word. When coming up with the words, try to use combinations of letters that would minimize multiple combination possibilities. For example "Treasu" and "re Map" is better than "Treasure" and "Map" because the latter words could go nicely with other complete words you might have. Once all of the pairs have been assembled, the couples are ready to begin the treasure hunt.

This one works well if you have the exact number of participants on each team. Take the number of participants on a team and choose that number of crewman responsibilities on a ship. For example, if you'd like teams of four then you might choose Captain, Quartermaster, Cook and Crow's Nest Watch. On small pieces of paper, write down a set of each of the four, in this example, one for each team that must be formed. The idea is that each participant will draw one piece of paper out of the hat. Once they have, everyone is to mill about forming their own teams, making sure that they have one of every crewman on their team. By telling them that they can begin the treasure hunt as soon as they have a complete crew will motivate them to choose quickly.

Assign a ship's captain for each team and take them into a separate room. With everyone else left together, have them remove one of their shoes to put in a large box. Once one of everyone's shoes have been collected, bring the box of shoes into the room with all of the captains. Each ship's captain will take turns choosing their crew mates based solely on the shoe that they find in the box. Once each captain has made his/her selection of shoes, they are to carry the shoes out to where everyone is waiting. Teams are then formed based on who owns each shoe! For best results, do not inform any of the participants about how the teams will be assembled until the captains have left the room entirely (less the captains begin checking out everyone's shoes in advance.)

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