Yo Ho Ho!

"Yo ho ho, we're so cool.

We are pirates and we love school."

The last week of April is Pirate Week in our corner of the world and this post has been sitting in my computer since then. I was out sick the month of May and just never got around to finishing this. But it was too much fun to forget about.

Our town has a huge festival every year on the 1st weekend in May (Shrimp Festival)
 and the week leading up to it is "all things PIRATE."

Classes all over our school read pirate books, made pirates, walked and talked like pirates,
and even dressed like pirates on Thursday
(because that Friday is a day off for us:) How many of you have a Pirate Day holiday?!)

In our classroom we started the week with the book Pirates Go To School.

My kids all picked out which pirate they wanted to be.....
the one with no shoes, the one that smells of rotten fish, the peg legged one, and the girls all said they just wanted to be a girl pirate.

And what do pirates know ALL about? maps, of course.
So we spent most of our time that week reviewing our map skills.

We used this super cute packet from Primary Paradise.

It comes with a power point to show your students.
It features 2 characters (with really cute names that I'm not going to tell you)
and they tell you all about maps......

In order to keep my students focused, I divided the class and put boys on one side
and girls on the other.  I had my kids read the power point. The boys read with the boy pirate and the girls read with the girl pirate and of course I made them use their pirate voices (funny).

Next, we completed the practice maps that came with the packet.
There are basic maps and grid maps to check their understanding.
They were fun and the kids hardly felt like they were working:)

The end of the week was the best part for them.
We used the template that is included to have them draw their own maps.
They were free to draw whatever setting they wanted but they had to include
a title, map key, symbols and a compass rose.

Then we made the cute pirate craft that goes with it.
Here are a few of ours:)

It was a fun week with a shipful of learning!