Summer Themes Week 1: Pirates!

In an effort to create a little structure to our summer I copied an idea I saw from my friend Shelly Jorgensen years ago: weekly themes.  Piper and Bastian were very excited about the idea.  They came up with all the themes and several activities (here's the spreadsheet).  We even started the themes two weeks before school got out (but it is June so it seems like summer).  And, since kindergarten is over at 11am, so we still have plenty of time left in the day.

We start the week on Monday at the library.  I searched last week and about put a half dozen books on reserve (greatest feature ever at the library if you have multiple children).  I lucked out and found a cool pirate activity book, a pirate book on CD and some other picture books.  I also got a pirate cook book, but it was intense.  I hid it from my kids so they wouldn't get any lofty ideas:).

Here are most of the activities we did this week.

I made easels out of cardboard and duct tape (super easy and the kids love them) and then we painted the ocean and the sky.  I was going to cut out and paste pirate ships on top, but the kids lost interest and I didn't care enough to push it.

Super cool pirate park that's about 15 minutes away from our house (a major reason we chose a pirate theme).  It threatened rain the whole time we were there so we basically had the park to ourselves.  Usually it's a popular place.

There are 3 separate play structures.

A sand area at the pirate park (plus periodic stream) with donated sand toys.

 Our treasure map - I could have spent a bit more time (I wouldn't make it with white paper again), but I at least burned the edges.  The map started at our house, wandered through the neighborhood and ended about 1/4 mile away in the woods.  There were enough familiar clues that Piper could follow the map by herself.  The kids also enjoyed making their own treasure maps throughout the week.  Bastian especially liked it because as he told me, he's really good at making "X's."

X marks the spot.  The treasure (chocolate coins and some pennies) was in a small treasure box we had on hand.

They found the X!  We dressed up before we headed out on our hunt.  It's hard to see, but Isaac is holding one of the cutlasses we made.

And, what pirate outing is complete without a little exploration?

We made cutlasses out of cardboard (reinforced with chopsticks).  We also played a pirate board game, watched Peter Pan, and just randomly talked like pirates throughout the day.  I loved hearing Bastian say "ahoy me hearties!"  For pirate food we ate tuna fish sandwiches and marshmallow mateys.  On Saturday we had dinner at a local pirate/pizza/arcade place, but the pizza was overpriced and I wouldn't do that again.  I'm hoping to make these theme weeks fairly inexpensive.

It was a fun week.  Next up, vehicle/construction week.