Pirate Adventure

avas, me hardies!

pirates are a subject that have fascinated me since my very first “treasure hunt” with my Grandpa Ferd at age four. In honor of my Grandpa, and the little adventure-seeker that lives in every pre-schooler, Pirate Adventure Week is a must.

We start out making the classic newspaper pirate hats–note to parents/teachers–be careful what images/text are on your newspaper! Hats can be decorated a number of ways–for our time purposes, we colored with marker. Our art requirements were: your name, jewels, feathers, and a parrot medallion. Requirements keep the children on task while providing flexibility and choice–some students worked for ten minutes on their hats while others worked for thirty or more! (Students go to “choosing time” when they are finished.)

Our books this week included “How I Became A Pirate” for JK and “Roger, the Jolly Pirate” for SK. Senior Kindergartens also generated some excellent questions about pirates, for example, were pirates real? are there still pirates? did all pirates have eye patches? what did they eat? etc. I have an excellent book called “What If You Met A Pirate” that has a wealth of pirate facts and interesting tidbits. (The illustrations are a bit graphic though, so you may want to wait a few years before putting this one into your child’s library.)

After our storytime, children participated in a treasure hunt–I hide small paper clues all over the room, and then we become a clue-finding team, hunting high and low for clues. It is really important to prep the children to help others find clues if they find one first–a lot of really kind moments and sweet sharing takes place during this activity. Also, be sure to have more clues than children–they really like to be able to find one (sometimes I keep a couple in my pocket and check to see who hasn’t found one yet–I then quickly hide them and invite the remaining child/ren to help me look for the last few clues.) When clues are gathered, we put the words together in a circle, using our emerging reading skills to “sound out” each of the words, and then unscramble the message (intro to sentence structure). Invariably, the message reads, “TO FIND THE TREASURE, YOU MUST FIND THE X!”

Children begin to hunt for a large letter X…when they find it, they point to it, giving everyone a chance to “spy” it. (This year, the treasure box was in the freezer upstairs!) A teacher carries the treasure box to the table and when all are seated we open it and take turns choosing our treasure!

Closure for the day includes learning the Pirate Handshake (make a “hook” finger and shake your neighbor’s “hook” and say “ARGH!”) and the Pirate Song, which goes like this:

“When I was ONE I sucked my thumb (show one finger, show pretend sucking thumb)
Going over the sea (make wave motion with arm)
I JUMPED aboard a PIRATE SHIP (jump aboard, make a sneer and a fist for “pirate ship”)
and the CAPTAIN said to me (salute on “captain)

When I was TWO I tied my shoe (show two fingers, show pretend tying shoes)
Going over the sea (make wave motion with arm)…

You can see where that is going. Just change the first line each time to the next number and an appropriate rhyme! Students love to help think of a good rhyme too…be prepared for some wacky ones though (”five” and “hive” come up a lot).