“Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate.”- Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean
September 19th is International Pirate Day, but you can engage your learners all year long with pirate activities. Students can learn science, math, geography, history, culture, citizenship, and more by studying famous pirates. They can also learn cartography, the study and science of map making. Below is a slide presentation (download the pdf) and a list of resources to get you started.Find this post also on the American TESOL blog. If you like these ideas then be sure to check out my new book published this summer with more ideas, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom.
Get your copy of my books, The 30 Goals for Teachers or Learning to Go. Ask me about training your teachers, [email protected]!
Activities and Web Sites
- Students can create their own treasure hunts with these resources:
- Click here for a cool craft activity for making an authentic looking map! You can use grocery brown bags.
- Teach them science and have them add invisible ink to their maps. Find invisible ink recipes here.
- Students can create QR code Treasure Hunts with Class Tools QR Treasure Hunt.
- They can draw a map and use Thinglink to add pop up text clues like this example. Find instructions on making on making an interactive map with Thinglink here.
- Students can create their own pirate themed comic strips with these tools:
- Friendstrip is a free iOS/Android app to make comic strips. They have a pirate prompt for students to add their own captions and pictures.
- Toondoo is a free web tool to create comics and books and has pirate characters and backgrounds.
- Makebeliefs Comix has a few pirate themed objects and characters. Create a comic online or use the free iPad app.
- Students can create their own pirate stories. Try Story Jumper, a free web tool for creating embeddable books. Students can choose from different pirate themed backgrounds and characters.
- Students can talk like a pirate with this English to Pirate translator.
- Get students to build their own pirate ships with paper, styrofoam, and other materials and test what makes their ships better. Find a lesson with background information here.
- Students can go on an interactive adventure and learn pirate history with this National Geographic game.
- Find tons of activities for creating pirate themed classroom games for children here.
- The Pirate Museum has several pirate themed lesson plans for K to 12 here.
- Learn English Kids has pirate themed songs, stories, and activities.
- Find a list of pirate themed books for K to 12 here.
- Find pirate online learning games for children here.
- Click to discover pirate games and activities for young children from Disney’s show, Jake and the Neverland Pirates.
- The Pirate’s Realm has a variety of resources including pirate history, flags, the pirate’s code, and a list of pirate museums.
- DLTK has printables, crafts, games, and more for children.
- A to Z has various lesson plans to learn with a compass and exploring maps.
- Teaching Ideas has a variety of pirate themed handouts and activities like filling out a pirate profile, coloring pages, and a describe the treasure activity.
- Discover more about famous pirate ships here.
- This 10 day unit about pirates has many different activities and resources.
Challenge: Try one of these resources for Talk Like a Pirate Day.
If you enjoyed these ideas, you may want to get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachers or my $5.99 ebook, Learning to Go, which has digital/mobile activities for any device and editable/printable handouts and rubrics.
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