Welcome to our “Shiver Me Timbers – Pirate Week” – an at home camp filled with days of relaxed learning and fun themed activities all themed to oh-so-fascinating Pirates! For this day, we dove into history to learn about some actual pirates and pirate life – what did they eat, what types of jobs did they have, what’s the difference between a privateer and a buccaneer, and more!
Like most of our days, we have a mix of activities to introduce the topic and keep the kids learning throughout the day. For this day, we read through parts of two nonfiction books about pirates, watched a few informative videos, ate somewhat like a pirate, created some pirates and pirate costumes, and passed out some coded messages. Read on to check out the fun!
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 But the gist of our day is having our kiddos focus on some work books or online learning tools in the early morning, an intro to the day’s theme after they were done, some videos around lunch time, and themed activities (reading time, writing time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments) in the afternoon. Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
Most kids are likely familiar with pirates from popular cartoons or movies and so mixing in some hands-on fun and themed activities is a great way to get them engaged and learning throughout the summer! They might not even realize their learning!
For this day, we focused quite a bit on reading and history which led to some natural pretend play at the end of the day 🙂
WHAT TO WATCH
We find that mixing in a short video themed to our day is a great way to add some learning fun! We try to pick informative videos OR mix in a cartoon favorite (where they don’t even realize they’re learning). Below are some of the videos we picked from for the day:
- The Who Was Show: Sacagawea & Blackbeard (S01E06)
- The Most Feared Pirate in the World – Blackbeard by The Infographics Show (11m)
- The Definitive History of Pirates [Animation for Kids] by Zoe (4m)
- Pirate Facts for Kids by Fun Facts for Kids (4m)
- What Did Pirates Eat? By God and Gunpowder (12m)
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
What’s more fun than taking a break and having a simple snack??? Including the snack in your theme of the day! We find that our kiddos are more than happy to eat the snacks they create especially when they can arrange them into fun shapes and scenes!
Though real pirate food may not sound as appetizing, we did serve up some cured meat along with some regular cheese. To add some fun to the mix, we pulled out our mini sword picks (for appetizers) and let the kids pick a few.
READING
It’s no secret that reading helps prevent that summer slide. Some even say this is the most important. For our older ones, we have them fill out some worksheets (or let them create some of their own comics) to describe what they read and/or learned!
For our books of the day, we picked out two non-fiction ones- one geared toward younger elementary children and the other toward older elementary ones. We also brought in our books from the previous day as they had some great information and pictures on the lives of pirates. We also mixed in a website where there was a brief bio on a few famous pirates.
- Pirates by Greg Nickles
- Who was Blackbeard? By James Buckley
- Famous Pirates Throughout History from dltk-kids.com
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing helps prevent that summer slide by both encouraging their creativity but also their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: PIRATE, SEA, SHIP, BLACK PEARL, HISTORY
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. This was our writing prompt of the day (and we offered up some examples as well) but definitely pick something your kiddo might be interested in writing about!
- Imagine you were the captain of a pirate ship and wrote about your adventures every day. Write about one of these adventures!
- You have been hired to find a mysterious island off the coast of the kingdom’s mainland. The island is shrouded in mist and fog, so no one can see it clearly. No one has been able to land on the island and return home safely. What awaits you there?
- Your crew has been hired to find the mysterious kraken – a massive sea creature with enormous tentacles that can sink ships almost instantly! Your crew grows nervous by the day. How will you inspire them to keep going?
- Your pirate ship was overtaken by mermaids!!! Are they friendly mermaids OR have they confronted you to take over your ship?
CREATE & CRAFT
If you’ve got a crafty little one, a simple craft is a great way to keep them interested in the topic. While their creative juices are flowing, you can also chat about what they’ve learned so far or ask them what else they’re excited about learning!
For our crafts of the day, we gave them a few options that would help them enhance their pretend play or add in some of what they learned:
- Design your own eye patch: Rather than printing out or purchasing pirate eye patches, we thought it was fun to let the kids design their own. We used a Pirate Eye Patch Template from pagingsupermom.com to make the outline a bit easier.
- Pirate Perler Beads: We picked up this Ocean Perler Set to create some pirates but if you’ve already got a good set of beads, you could try out a project already posted on perler.com (Pirate Skull, Pirate Ship and Treasure Chest, Pirate Frame) or do a quick search for some easier ones online.
- Open Ended – Pirate Pipe Cleaner: Mixing in an open ended craft is a great way to let your kids make a project their own. We laid out some pipe cleaners and felt so that they could create a pirate based upon what they had learned (eye patches, hats, swords, and all made their way onto their pirates!)
STEM & STEAM ACTIVITIES
While crafting and writing get their creativity and imagination flowing, we also like to add in an activity that gets them thinking along the lines of science, technology, engineering, or math! These engaging activities or experiments are a great way to keep them learning!
While treasure hunts and hidden gold is a bit of myth for historical pirates, they still do quite a bit to capture the imagination! Using that excitement, we added in a bit of coding fun and talked a little bit about cryptography (or coding messages and solving those codes). We did find a printable pirate treasure hunt activity but also took the time to talk through different types of ciphers.
Once we introduced different types of codes, we let the kids create their own simple encoded messages and “pass notes in camp”. It was super fun to decode each other’s silly messages!
- Free Printable Pirate Treasure Hunt Clues from blog.partydelights.co.uk
- 7 Secret Spy Codes for Kids with Printable List | Cryptography for kids from learnincolor.com
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home camp article! If you enjoyed this post, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other Pirate Ideas or DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
