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 had tons of fun learning all about cartography, treasure maps, and whether or not pirates actually hid their treasure!
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 fiction book featuring one of our favorite cats, perused through an atlas, watched a few videos, and created some treasure maps of our own.! 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 seen a number of those cartoons or books show pirates searching for treasure using codes and treasure maps! But, they may be surprised to know that pirates rarely hid their treasure and so didn’t really need treasure maps! Maps, on the other hand, were a very important tool for pirates.
For our cartography day, we focused on how to read maps and then sprinkled in some treasure map activities (because they’re just too fun to resist)!
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:
- Maps for Kids | Learn how to read a map and other skills in this fun introduction to maps from Learn Bright (9m)
- Did Pirates Bury Treasure? | COLOSSAL QUESTIONS by Colossal Questions (3m)
- Wild Kratts – Aye Aye Episode
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 had the kids create ‘treasure maps’ with some animal crackers and other veggies. We didn’t have a set template, so each ‘map’ looked different and delicious!
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 books of the day, we had a picture book for our younger ones and an atlas with a wealth of information!
- Pete the Cat & The Treasure Map by James Dean
- The World Atlas of Pirates: Treasures and Treachery on the Seven Seas–in Maps, Tall Tales, and Pictures by Angus Konstam
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, MAP, TREASURE, CARTOGRAPHY
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!
- If you were a pirate who found buried treasure, where would you hide it? What would your treasure map look like?
- If you had to create a treasure chest today and it could only fit five items, what would you put in it?
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 had a few to pick from:
- Cootie Catcher: If you can manage to assemble these, little ones seem to love the concept – having another person pick a number or image until they get to their ‘fortune’. So, when we found these Let’s Go on a Treasure Hunt printables from downloadablecootiecatchers.wordpress.com, we had to add them into our day 🙂
- Treasure Map Sticker Sheet: These Giant DIY Treasure Map Sticker Sheets are a must for kids who love stickers!
- Wooden Treasure Box – We picked up a few wooden treasure boxes from Michaels (they have a few different sizes so you can pick smaller ones for a little less cost all the way up to some fairly large ones that can hold a few small toys or books).
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 created a few treasure map papers of our own! We followed the science-sparks.com how-to and tried out a few variations of tea bags / coffee of our own!
- Treasure Maps and Concentrations from science-sparks.com
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!
