We choose to start our homeschool year with a Treasure Island Pirate Unit Study. Jake suggested the topic and we all agreed that it would be the perfect, fun way to get started on this new adventure!
Treasure Island
The book Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson was the anchor for this unit study. I was amazed how well both kids understood and enjoyed the story. We frequently stopped to look up the definition of words we were unsure of, and in the end we all learned some new vocabulary and found a new book we loved. I also lucked out and found a picture book edition with illustrations for .25 cents at a thrift store right before starting the unit. That was great to flip through while we read to see some of the scenes come to life.
Eastport Pirate Festival
We also were lucky and happened to have the Eastport Pirate Festival happening just a couple of hours away from us right as we were beginning this unit study. This was the perfect first field trip of the year. The event was amazing and I will probably write another blog post just about the festival and our camping trip that weekend too.
The festival was totally free, except for food and the pirates were so good with the kids. One of them immediately approached us, chatted for a bit and gave each kid their own pirate name. Their was a Treasure Island puppet show (how perfect was that!), sword fighting lessons for kids, cannon loading lessons and firing (every five year old boys dream!) tattoos, treasure map making, a pirate parade, games….so much more that I’m sure I’m not remembering. The pirates were in costume and totally in character so we got to hear some of that pirate language. This was just such a cool way to make a subject that we were studying come to life.
Some of our favorite pirate books, fiction and non fiction…
The Pirates Handbook, Margarette Lincoln
The World of the Pirate, Val Garwood
Magic Treehouse Research Guide Pirates, Will and Mary Pope Osborne
How to be a Pirate, Isaac Fitzgerald
Pirates go to School, Corinne Demas
Pirate Stew, Lou Carter and Nikki Dyson
Pirates, Robbers of the High Seas, Gail Gibbons
Pirate Stew, Neil Gaiman
Pirates Alphabet, Patti Wigington
Shiver Me Letters, A Pirate ABC, June Sobel
Pirates Love Underpants, Ben Cort
Pirates Don’t go to Kindergarten, Lisa Robinson
Trick Arrr Treat, Leslie Kimmelman
Scurvy Dogs, Kevin Frank
Pirates Past Noon, Mary Pope Osborne
Some of my favorite websites with ideas for activities…
Activities We Used…
There was so much out there for us to do. This is what we ended up choosing for our Treasure Island Pirate Unit Study
1. Talk like a pirate lesson with MANGO! (mangolanguages.com)
2. Listen to “15 Men on a Dead Man’s Chest” Youtube Video (this was a song frequently sung in Treasure Island)
3. Buoyancy Lesson
We discussed that ships float because of something called buoyancy. We learned the definition of buoyancy and a little more about how it works.
Then we filled the sink with water and using the scientific method tested the buoyancy of different objects (soap, marble, ball, penny, matchbox car, etc.).
Then Anika and Jacob each created a boat based on the results of our experiment to see if they could get it to float. They did!
4. Clean the treasure activity
Anika and Jacob were given “treasure” of doubloons, pieces of eight and gold (change from my wallet) that were recovered from a sunken pirate ship and tarnished and covered with algae and other muck from the depths of the sea (painted green with washable paint). Their task was to clean the treasure using the different materials provided. Vinegar, Baking Soda, Vinegar and baking soda paste, Water, Water and Soap. They hypothesized what materials would work the best before starting their experiment. They also had two tools (paintbrush and toothbrush) to scrub them with.
This activity ended up being one of our favorites and kept the kids engaged for a lot longer then I originally anticipated. They both ended up taking it one step further and created their own cleaner using the materials that they found to work the best at cleaning the treasure. I provided them with empty spray bottles to use to hold their cleaners and then they both spent time coming up with a name for their new product. Also, they both worked great and I’ve used them multiple times to clean our house, lol!
5. Pirate Ship
We looked at pictures in books and online at Pirate ships. Anika created the pirate flag and the mermaid masthead.
6. Anika wrote a pirate shanty and drew illustrations to go along with it.
Anika’s Pirate Shanty
7. Anika taught Jake how to draw a pirate dog.
8. Jake completed various pirate related activities. Anika and Jacob both have a Math and Language Arts curriculum that they complete everyday. Jacob uses Fundations and Eureka Math. After some trial and error with Anika she is using The Good and the Beautiful for Language Arts and we just decided to swap over to Rightstart Math. I am particularly excited about this change as Anika currently despises math and I am hoping this hands on program will be a better fit for her. More updates to come about that!
That being said, Jacob finishes his math and reading much quicker than Anika, since he is in kindergarten. One of the areas of homeschooling that I am figuring out (among many, lol) is what to do with him in the downtime while I’m at working one on one with Anika. This unit study was great since there were so many fun things for him to do independently. Pirate games and Pirate themed sensory bins to name a few!
9. Pirates sailed the seven seas, we talked about the seven seas and found them on a map.
10. We talked about Scurvy and the cure for it.
11. One of our last activities of this unit study was a treasure hunt. The kids had to answer the clues about various pirate vocabulary and history that we had learned during the unit. It was also a fun chance to test how well we had learned the “pirate language”. They then followed the map to find the treasure chest.
12. We ended the unit by watching the Treasure Island movie. We discussed the differences between the book and movie and talked about which we liked better. It was unanimous that we all preferred the book!
I wish school had been that much fun when I was little!!! You found so many wonderful lessons to integrate into your Treasure Island unit and I love all of the concepts you taught the children. I really enjoyed hearing about all of the fun things you all did!
Awwww, thank you! Homeschooling is very new to me and my kids and the goal was to start the year as fun and magical as possible.
Hahaha….what a fun read this was; light and delightful to start off the school year ! The photos are magical as well and ooze buckets of joy while learning; adventure indeed!
Congratulations! It’s the extraordinary teacher who can bring out a child’s imagination while doing assignments .
You have that gift!
Mary Ann