Talk like a Pirate!

Do you follow calendar events in your early years setting? Did you know that on the 19th September it is ‘Talk like a pirate day’?  Well, I didn’t until a couple of years ago.  It hasn’t been around that long but I think some of the new events are quite fun as a starting point.  Whether, in your setting, you plan most of the activities or it is child led, themed days can be a great stimulus.

For example with ‘Talk like a pirate day’, there are lots of ways you could incorporate this theme in a day or even a week.

Books:

Role play area:

Create a Ship or Treasure Island.  

Outdoors:

• Have a basket of resources so the children can create: trails, ships, hideouts ...
• Water and sand play with boats and small world people
• Dig for treasure in the muddy area
• Laminated images of wanted posters and treasure maps (the children create these)

Drawing, Painting, Writing:

• The children create the treasure maps, wanted posters, 

Designing and constructing:

• Construction equipment and include some pictures of boats, pirates, mini islands...
• Card, paper and other materials to make hats, eye patches, wooden legs...

Music:

Listening and moving to pirate themed music:

Songs:

• What shall we do with the lazy pirate?
  
• I'm pirate Jack (a song I wrote to help the children with listening) available in the Early Years Music Ideas: https://www.musicintheearlyyears.com/early-years-music-ideas-2-to-5  

I'm sure you can think of many more ideas, these are just a few I thought about whilst writing this blog.  I’d love to hear if you are doing anything for 'Talk like a pirate day' and afterwards which activities the children loved.

Happy music making!