ARRRR You Ready to Talk Like a Pirate?

Did you know there's such a thing as Talk Like A Pirate Day?  It's celebrated (okay, that may be stretching the truth) on September 19th each year.  Now I don't know about you, but I'm all for dressing up, painting a beard on my face, and talking funny like a pirate, especially if I can say I'm doing it for work, for the children.  Who's to say I'm not?

I've found pirate learning to be a great match for learning the letter X - after all, X marks the spot, but isn't used for a whole lot else that makes sense to little kids.  As you can see my students enjoyed eye patches, cardboard hats (I found both of these at the dollar store), and stick on mustaches or tempera paint beards.  Add in a toy pirate ship, some inexpensive compasses and beads, and some cardboard "bones", and you have the making of letter study and pretend play.

I blogged about pirate learning several years ago, and included photos of some of the other pirate learning we've done: digging for treasure in the sensory bin, walking the plank (literally a plank on the floor!), costume play, and crafts.

Since then I've created many pirate themed resources to bring a pirate theme to measurement, reading, addition and subtraction, counting money, patterns, and numbers to 100.  If you're looking for some quick pirate themed lessons, I hope you'll check them out.

I've also gathered lots of pirate ideas on my Pinterest board - you can check that out here:


Finally, I thought I'd share some fun pirate videos that are targeted at the preschool - primary grade crowd.  These will get your students in the mood for pirate fun!  My students loved to dance along to Portside Pirates and to Jack Hartmann's Silly Pirate Song - and they make great brain breaks.  Want to talk about addition?  Try Harry Kindergarten's When You Add with a Pirate.  Ready for a silly story that will have the kiddos giggling?  Try Pirates Love Underpants!

That's it fer now, me hearties, ye've got some pirating to do now!