Pirate week!

My oldest two boys A & B are at Pirate camp this week so I thought it would be the perfect time to share some activities that we did in my ECSE classroom for our pirate week.  I will say, I think it was my favorite theme and the kids loved it.  I even had feedback from parents that heard all about it at home.

The first thing we did was read the book  How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long and David Shannon (I just loved David Shannon books!!).  At the end of the book we found a mysteriously placed treasure map. (Of course, I forgot to take pictures of this part).  The captain of our crew (AKA, me), led the students on a quest for buried treasure.  Our letter of the week was X, so we were looking for the X.  We found it!! And when we found the X, we found another map.  This continued for a few rounds until the map led us to a city playground next door to our school that has a pirate ship.  There we found the treasure box filled with gold and jewels.

After having some fun playing on the pirate ship.  The crew went back to the classroom and rotated though centers. Some were free play (kitchen, blocks) and others were structured.  In one center the students made their own pirate maps out of paper bags.  First they cut off the bottom and then cut a slit down the side (lots of following directions).  Next they drew their treasure map and added a foam x to mark the spot where their treasure would be buried.  The last thing they did was crumble up their map to make it look old.

Be on the lookout over the next few days for more posts about the fun pirate things we did!