Summer Theme-A-Week: Pirates

OK all you mothers with boys--here is a TAW you can sink your teeth into! This week's theme was chose by Sweetheart, age 8. Are you ready to set sail?

First, we scoured the house looking for anything to do with Pirates. This made our pirate collection, which we keep on the fireplace all week. They have played with these toys every single day. I couldn't help but notice how, um, commercial our collection is. I also realized I bought very little of it--thanks to grandparents and aunts. I would have told you we really didn't own that much pirate stuff, but I would have been wrong! I'm sure boy houses might have more.

I was excited about this theme because it was a bit "older" giving the big girls a chance to learn something as well. We checked out two kinds of books from the library this week: fiction...

and non-fiction. I think that's the biggest thing Sweetheart learned this week: that pirates were real and not nice. But fictional pirates can be fun!

First, we made pirate hats. I learned how to fold them here. Sweetheart went with the bone stencil idea from the website, but Little Bit chose a smiley face just like Pirate Pig in this Dora book. So, I made the stencils. Then the girls painted their hats because they will paint anything.
Here are the finished products, along with eye patches and earrings from the party store. AARRGHH!

It has rained here everyday, so we got pretty crafty. I realize in a boy house where there are swords, pirate week might look a bit different. We made anchors (can't remember where I found the pattern, sorry!) with paper chains attached. Here is Little Bit working on the ABC pattern I started on her chain.

All done!

We also made telescopes, or rather spy glasses. You could make them from a paper towel tube, but I had a sturdier carboard tube. We almost never got it cut though. We put plastic wrap over one end and colored the tube with crayons. Sweetheart didn't want to wait for paint to dry! We covered the plastic wrap end with colored paper and they were done. Don't you just love these natural poses? It's like I caught the action while it was happening, isn't it? Or not.

One other project we did this week was to make treasure maps. I found the maps online and the kids colored them with colored pencils. It's important not to use markers for this project. Then we cut them out, crumpled up a piece of brown paper sack and also crumpled up the map then glued it on the brown paper. Then I rubbed a used tea bag (wrung out) over the map to make it look old.

You have to be careful or the tea bag will bust. Wanna know how I know?

Which I wouldn't recommend as far as clean-up goes, but it did make good maps! I just kept rubbing the tea all over the map anyway. I think they came out great.

All this pirate work inspired lots of play in the girls this week. The couch became a ship, a flag was fashioned using a stick, fabric and pony tail holders, and a fan was used to make the storm. It was fun to see them use their imaginations.

At my sister's house they made pirate skeletons this week. She asked them "How do you think he died?" They made up some story about how he was a nice pirate so he got kicked off the ship for being too nice. I told her we even managed to "girl up" a pirate theme! We watched Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie, a Pippi Longstocking pirate movie which was rated G but very, very weird, and my sister's kids enjoyed the Muppet's Treasure Island. Like I said, it rained all week.

The big finale was our treasure hunt. First, they had to dress up in the appropriate attire. They followed clues all over the house until they found their treasure. Little Bit followed picture clues, while Sweetheart read her clues.

We're rich!

Have a great weekend, mateys!