Talk Like A Pirate Day + Freebie!

Some of my favorite activities are centered around the pirate theme. Kids seem to love the mystery of buried treasure, maps, and intrigue on the high sea! What better time to play like a pirate, than “Talk Like a Pirate Day”. You can check out the official site for “Talk Like a Pirate Day” here.

I have some fun pirate activities that we are playing with all week! Did I mention that I love pirates??? We started out by making “Pirate Gold Play Dough”. We used a recipe from Kids Activity Blog. To make the play dough more like treasure, we added glitter to the dough. The kids got to pour it in and knead it into the dough. Great fine motor practice and FUN!

We used the “Treasure Dough” with my Pirates: Interactive Play Dough Mats Pack. The kids used the play doh to create the numerals. Some kids made snakes to create the numerals, others smashed the play dough down on the numeral.

I always have them trace the letter, after building it with play dough. It lets kids really experience the letter formation in a very tactile way. It’s also a great way for kids to take ownership of the numbers. They build the number and trace it themselves.

Below, the students used the play dough to create the numeral and to make the matching number of “pirates”.

Another way to use the pirate manipulatives is to press them on top of each play dough ball. This will really help students to focus on one-to-one correspondence.

I include treasure chest mats and cards to make these mats more interactive. There are three types of cards: numerals, ten frames, and addition cards.

Here the student chose a ten frame card and created the same number of play dough treasure in the chest.

Here is an example of a numeral card.

Here is the addition card. I have students use two different colors to represent the addition sentence.

Then, students will use their fingers to physically touch and count each piece of “gold”. This student smooshed each piece, as he counted. It really gives them the kinesthetic experience of counting each piece of play dough.

We also got out the “Missing Pirates” Missing Addends pack. Students will use counters to identify the missing number in the addition sentence. You can get a free sample of this pack here.

Students will record the addition sentence on the recording sheet.

Here is an example of how I set up the center. I include the missing addends mats, the pirate counters, and the recording sheet. Check out this post to get the little story that goes along with the mats and more suggestions!

We also experimented with pirate treasure! We used a recipe for dinosaur eggs from Projects for Preschoolers. See it here. We used the same recipe. My son wrote it down for us to follow. On the last part, he was experimenting with cursive.

The kids were able to use measure each ingredient.

They mixed it all together.

Added the water and started to hide our treasure!

We used all kinds of “treasure”. Pirate coins, beads, costume jewelry, even real coins.

They had a great time hiding the treasure in the “rocks”.

Costume jewelry peeking out.

When they were done, we put them on an old cookie sheet and let them dry overnight. We put them in a window, so the sun helped dry them.

While we waited for the treasure to dry, we created treasure chests.

I cut an egg carton in two pieces.

The kids painted them and decorated with stickers.

The next day, I hid all of the pirate treasure. They were able to go on a treasure hunt (with maps) to find all the pirate treasure. They wore their pirate hats and the eye patches (for about one minute) to complete the pirate look.

After collecting all their treasure, they got to break open the “rocks”. It was really like hunting for buried treasure.

They wanted to use pirate tools, but you could just break them open with your hands.

They got to use old toothbrushes to clean their treasure.

Then, they added the treasure to their treasure box!

It was such a fun experience!

I hope you have a fabulous “Talk Like a Pirate Day” tomorrow! If you would like to use any of my pirate resources, you can click on the pictures below to purchase them. Ahoy, matey!!