"Argh, Matey!"

This week we learned about pirates! We bought this book in August at a pirate store we encountered in Florida while on vacation. We used it as the basis for our study. It was a different week, I'll say. We didn't encounter much "meat" to hang on to, though this might be because both kids had tonsillitis and something like strep Tuesday through Friday. We did our fun things and just read lots of books. Now that I think of it, we did learn the parts of a ship, review the seven seas, and had a lot of practice following directions (navigation and treasure maps and clues). I guess it wasn't a slow week after all!

I did feel a responsibility as well to teach Jacob that pirates are not someone we want to ascribe to be like! Pirate life seems to be totally romanticized, but they were just cold blooded criminals! I have no intention of studying any other criminals anytime soon, and didn't really think that through before we got started.

Jacob drew this galleon (new word for the week).

We reviewed a bit about parrots too and copied this craft from a picture we saw. I think I read that it's from an Usborne book.

And of course we couldn't skip dressing up as pirates ($3.46 costumes!!!) and doing a treasure hunt after we made our treasure chest! I used these clues for starters and added a couple of others. I thought this activity might have been more fun with some friends of Jacob's, but it turned out well that we did it alone. Jacob is very slow to comprehend/think through/look for things like this. When he does these things with friends, he rides on their coattails and doesn't get any better at it. He also gets mad that he finds everything last. So it turned out well for him.

My two little pirates


Jacob had to decode one of the clues.


Mattie found a clue!


X marks the spot!


Jacob found the buried treasure while Mattie was screaming her head off. (She "stubbed" her toe on the way to the last clue, so we promptly headed out for what turned out to be 8 stitches.)


Our treasure!