Aaarrgh, Mateys!

As we enter the summer months, we are now officially in our "on one week, off one week" schooling sessions.  I missed a couple of postings from May, but I'm just going to let them slide.  Too much going on in this house!  Instead, I'm beginning the month of June with a bang!

My Scurvy Pirate Crew

We went to the Billy Bowleggs Festival in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida last weekend where the boys had a blast yelling for beads at the parade floats, eating cotton candy and ice cream, and listening to the cannons shoot off as the pirates came ashore.  So, for the next week, we did a lot of pirate themed activities.

P is for Pirate!

M is for Map!

I downloaded a pirate unit from TeachersPayTeachers called "Learning /ar/ words with Pirate Mark" by Abby Mullins.  We had so much fun with this unit!  It came with a story about Pirate Mark, an art project with the /ar/ words, a board game, a treasure hunt activity, sentence strips, and sample lesson plans.  I also found a pirate lap book idea that used the book, On A Pirate Ship by Sarah Courtauld.  This link also gives lots of ideas to use for just about every subject which was nice.

Unscrambling sentence strips of the story, Pirate Mark

Practicing scissor skills by cutting out "Pirate Letters"
for the Pirate Lapbook

Putting the Pirate Alphabet in order using the pocket chart and the ABC strip
up on the wall.

/ar/ Treasure Map.  The /ar/ words were "hidden" around the room and the boys
had to find them, sound the words out, and put them on the map.  Once they
found all the words, I gave them clues to find the real hidden treasure which was
a Hershey's chocolate baaaarrrr.  Haha!

Pirate Lapbook boardgame.  The big boys rolled the die and moved their
marker piece while little bro watches from his exersaucer.

                                                                         

Pirate Mark Art Project 

Surrender Ye Booty!

A math activity I came up with using all the beads that the boys got from the festival weekend.  We sorted them all out according to color, counted them, and then Hayden graphed the results.  Below are pictures of the boys working on the activity.  Hayden, diligent worker that he is, painstakingly untangled all those beads and sorted them out almost entirely by himself.  Sawyer, crazy nut that HE is, got bored quickly and decided to tangle himself up in the pile of beads.

Some other math activities I found online for pirates:  a color-by-number pirate worksheet pictured below, plus an addition worksheet where they had to stamp the gold pieces using a pencil eraser and ink pad that I wasn't able to photograph.

Color-by-Number Pirates

And last but not least this week......

                                                         the coveted pirate treasure map!

It took us all week to do make this treasure map, only because we had so many other activities going on, and we never seemed to have the time to really sit down and focus on it.  We made it using white bulletin board paper which we ripped off the sides to make it look ragged.  Then we stained it with leftover coffee and let it sit for a day.  We tried using tea at first, but it didn't make it dark enough (either that, or I didn't let it sit long enough).  Yesterday, we finally drew out our map making several obstacles like Skull Rock and Serpent Pass.  The boys have decided to use this map for Daddy to have to find his present on Father's Day next Sunday.  Ha!

Books We Read This Week:
Half-Pint Pete the Pirate by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen
A Pirate's Life for Me! by Julie Thompson and Brownie MacIntosh
On a Pirate Ship by Sarah Courtauld
Pirates Don't Change Diapers! by Melinda Long