Welcome to our “Shiver Me Timbers – Pirate Week” – an at home camp filled with days of relaxed learning and fun themed activities all themed to oh-so-fascinating Pirates! For this day, we took a closer look at navigation and the tools pirates used to find their way!
Like most of our days, we have a mix of activities to introduce the topic and keep the kids learning throughout the day. For this day, we read through a short nonfiction book as well as some informative websites, watched a few videos, and looked at a few types of tools pirates used.! Read on to check out the fun.
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 But the gist of our day is having our kiddos focus on some work books or online learning tools in the early morning, an intro to the day’s theme after they were done, some videos around lunch time, and themed activities (reading time, writing time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments) in the afternoon. Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
Most kids are likely familiar with pirates from popular cartoons or movies. They’ve probably also noticed some of the tools pirates used to find their way from point A to point B – telescopes, compasses, sextants, and more! So mixing in some hands-on fun and themed activities is a great way to get them engaged and learning throughout the summer! They might not even realize their learning!
If you’ve got any of these tools on hand, it would be a great time to bring them out for the kids to use and explore 🙂
WHAT TO WATCH
We find that mixing in a short video themed to our day is a great way to add some learning fun! We try to pick informative videos OR mix in a cartoon favorite (where they don’t even realize they’re learning). Below are some of the videos we picked from for the day:
- How Do Compasses Work? By Live Science (1.5m)
- Sextant Tutorial: The Principle of the Sextant Casual Navigation Academy (7m)
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
What’s more fun than taking a break and having a simple snack??? Including the snack in your theme of the day! We find that our kiddos are more than happy to eat the snacks they create especially when they can arrange them into fun shapes and scenes!
For our snack of the day, we kept things a bit simple and had some pirate booty 🙂
READING
It’s no secret that reading helps prevent that summer slide. Some even say this is the most important. For our older ones, we have them fill out some worksheets (or let them create some of their own comics) to describe what they read and/or learned!
For our book of the day, we picked a book about navigating at sea. While it’s not specific to pirates, it does have great pages on the different tools pirates used for navigation.
- Navigating at Sea (Smithsonian Readers) by Dona Herweck Rice
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing helps prevent that summer slide by both encouraging their creativity but also their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: PIRATE, COMPASS, SEXTANT, TELESCOPE, NAVIGATE
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. This was our writing prompt of the day (and we offered up some examples as well) but definitely pick something your kiddo might be interested in writing about!
- Imagine you could only get to your favorite playground using some of the pirate navigation tools. Which ones would you use? Would it be easy or hard to find your way?
CREATE & CRAFT
If you’ve got a crafty little one, a simple craft is a great way to keep them interested in the topic. While their creative juices are flowing, you can also chat about what they’ve learned so far or ask them what else they’re excited about learning!
For our craft of the day, we picked an old time favorite – creating paper towel roll telescopes! This one is great cause it’s inexpensive but also allows them to decorate as they please while giving them a great prop for some imaginative play!
- Paper Towel Telescope
STEM & STEAM ACTIVITIES
While crafting and writing get their creativity and imagination flowing, we also like to add in an activity that gets them thinking along the lines of science, technology, engineering, or math! These engaging activities or experiments are a great way to keep them learning!
For our STEM activity of the day, we built a telescope using a kit we had leftover from another week. The telescopes are not the greatest – the kids liked them because they could see the two different lenses and were able to put them together based on what they learned. They’re easy to assemble and the kids can decorate them once finished. If you’re looking for a much better working telescope, there are other kids out there but they’re far more expensive.
- Make a Telescope by kids.nationalgeographic.com
- Telescope Kit
We also found a handful of cool experiments or things to try at home but we didn’t have the time or thought they might be a bit too advanced for our little ones. They do seem pretty cool, though, if you want to take a look or add them to your day/unit!
- Try This At Home: Build a Sextant by https://spacecenter.org
- How to Make Your Own Compass by nps.gov. A compass is one of the tools pirates used for navigation. Can you create your own?
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home camp article! If you enjoyed this post, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other Pirate Ideas or DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
