I'm not sure what possessed me to do a Pirate Unit Study. I think I was just thinking about how much Ziggy would like it. But we all ended up liking it so much! I learned a lot of things I didn't know, and tied in to many eras of history I hadn't really studied before. It was such a fun unit. It ended up being a pretty long one too!
One fun activity was making our own "Jolly Roger"-style pirate flags. We looked at
pictures of other pirate flags for inspiration. The children's flags turned out quite scary! Goldie's flag (above) was particularly devious. It looked like a regular country's flag at first, and then could be flipped around to show that the ship was actually owned by the fearsome M.E.N.! Look at that terrifying pirate marigold emblazoned upon the flag.
Some links for fun things we did:
Types of pirate ships—if you've ever wondered, as we have, what words like "schooner" and "sloop" and "frigate" mean.
I thought "
ship worms" were super interesting to learn about (they are really a type of burrowing clam!)
This video teaching
how to tie different knots was really cool. The kids learned to do several of the simpler ones! The explanations and terminology are fascinating too.
We learned how to play
Liar's Dice and it's so fun! Very simple, too. Once we got it down we played it a lot, and even the big boys liked to join in. Basically all you need are cups and a bunch of dice.
Have you read about the
discovery of the "Queen Anne's Revenge," Blackbeard's real ship? I hadn't. It is a fascinating story. They're still preserving and cataloguing artifacts from it. You can look at some of them at that link.
One of my favorite things to learn about was the basics of
sailing and navigation. It was interesting to hear how smart they actually were about it even back in the 1500's and 1600's.
I didn't know the
Gulf Stream was so important for sailors. This video talks about the
Jet Stream, which the children got interested in after learning about the Gulf Stream.
We watched "Pirates of Penzance" during this unit, of course, and also "Blackbeard's Ghost." Oh, and "Swiss Family Robinson" and "Muppet Treasure Island." Some good ones.
Teddy worked really hard on his red skeleton flag—it was especially hard to cut it out around all those little corners—and it turned out great!
Clementine stole Ziggy's flag, which seems right somehow
Ziggy's skull and crossbones was so good! He did all the drawing and cutting himself!
Junie's had some meaningful symbols on it. Who would dare attack a flag that showed the hourglass sands of life expiring, alongside that bloody sword?
Daisy made up a whole story about her flag, how it was owned by a pirate princess who wasn't actually mean, but wanted to appear so. Her skull is a cupcake and her crossbones are cleaning supplies! That is actually quite appropriate for dear Daisy, who wouldn't hurt a fly.
Oh goodness. Gus's Caw Pirate flag is the cutest. I had forgotten how cute it was. How did he draw such a cute Caw?
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Another day, we made pirate puppets out of paper bags and felt. I cut up an old bandana to use too. (Inspiration from
here.)
I liked the variety of pirates the children made. The Pirate Caw is cute, and I love the lady pirate too. (We actually spent a day learning about parrots and macaws as part of this unit because…why not? They sort of go with pirates! Close enough! It was worth it to read all the parrot and macaw books to Gussie!) We even made little paper macaws, just for fun.
I love this guy's mustache and eyepatch!
This ponytail is so good.
Junie's Captain Blackbeard. I like his earring!
Ziggy's scary pirate crew!
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One of Ziggy's pirate drawings…as you see, this pirate is soon going to get a stern talking-to from the Navy Police! Zig was ambivalent about pirates, really. He wanted to like them, and did like them…but also was horrified at their law-breaking ways! As a frequent policeman himself, he didn't feel he could condone such behavior. I felt much the same myself! We talked a lot about why some men would have chosen piracy, and what their other options might have been.
We watched "Captain Phillips" (it's a good movie with Tom Hanks, about modern day pirates…quite intense) with the older girls during this unit, and that sparked some interesting discussions too.
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We learned about map-drawing and I had the children draw a map of a specific place, either in the house or the neighborhood—somewhere we could recognize. Then we tried to guess what each other's maps depicted. (Here are some images of
pirate maps we looked at!)
I think the one above is Marigold's map of the storage room. It shows the big paint buckets, the furnace, Christmas decorations, even the grinning pumpkin bucket on a shelf in the corner!
This is Daisy's detailed map of the main floor of the house, even showing furniture, and stepping stones and swings in the backyard!
Ziggy's maps were both so great! He really has an eye for them. This is the house…you can see stairs going up from the van in the garage…then stairs going down in the front of the house and Seb's car parked out front. Then the stairs going upstairs, and Ziggy upstairs in the loft wearing his police outfit! So great!
And this is his map of the hill and the park in front of it, plus a tiny Ziggy riding his bike around it—which about sums up what you would have seen if you visited our house during this time period!
