Not a Flannel Friday: Celebrating Talk Like a Pirate Day!

AVAST, me hearties!

It be time to celebrate!

Aaaaarrrrr!

If you follow this blog or my Flannel Friday posts at all, then you know how much I adore anything pirate-y. 

If you know about my love for pirate treasures ~ then you have probably guessed that I look forward to Talk Like a Pirate Day each year. And, oooooh, how I DO look forward to it!

If you have never heard of this very special day, you can learn about the celebration here.

For this year, I have been working on adding things for younger children to my pirate stash of things to share when it is time to set sail with the Captain at a storytime for little ones. 

Recently, I came across a delightfully illustrated Board Buddies book entitled,  Pirates!

Illustrations by Viviana Garofoli

The simple and easy-to-follow text presents the exciting antics of a small band of young pirates. Your younger child(ren) will enjoy the brightly colored illustrations, especially the expressive faces of the pirate crew. They remind me a little of the old Peanuts characters ~ especially Charlie Brown! ;o) 

For my Flannel Friday Round-Up contribution this week, I have made a magnetic board set of 5 young pirates. These could be made for use on a flannel board by backing them with a little felt or they could be made into stick puppets so that you could have 5 children actively participate in the rhymes by holding the stick puppets up in front of the group ~ until you take them back as you count-down with the last rhyme.

Each pirate is around 9 to 10 inches tall.

For the first activity, I am sharing a piggy-back song:

One Brave Pirate

(Sung to the tune of "One Little Elephant")

One brave pirate sailed out to sea

Across the blue waters, wild and free

He had such enormous fun

That he called for another brave pirate to come.

Two brave pirates sailed out to sea

Across the blue waters, wild and free

They had such enormous fun

That they called for another brave pirate to come.

Continue counting up to five 

~ adding another pirate with each verse.

Special note: As you can see, I used the illustrations from the book to create my cute little pirates. Out of respect for the illustrator, I am only posting a few pictures here. I will be using these adorable pirates along with the book so that I can give credit where credit is due! I feel that by creating a magnetic set that mimics the illustrations in the book, I am adding some cohesion to my storytimes. The little ones will be able to more easily connect the book with the song and rhyme. It also gives me an opportunity to talk briefly with the adults about the importance of reading well-illustrated books with characters that appeal to younger children. These little guys are perfect for this "teachable moment" discussion.

Five Scurvy Pirates

Five scurvy pirates standing on the shore,

One went on a search and that left four.

Four scurvy pirates sailing out to sea,

One went for a swim and that left three.

Three scurvy pirates out on the ocean blue,

One walked the plank and that left two.

Two scurvy pirates having tons of fun,

One went below the deck and that left one.

One scurvy pirate, tired and alone,

He turned the ship around and sailed for home.

The book actually only had 3 different pirates so we had to play around with them in Photoshop to make 5 pirates for the set. This is the same guy with a few tweaks, like different hair color:

We also made a few changes to this guy ~ a solid-colored bandana and striped:pajama pants to match his shirt!

We all had a blast at our Talk Like a Pirate celebration! We sang and danced like pirates. We counted pirates and fish. And we even "swam in the ocean" with lots of other sea creatures. We topped off storytime with a yummy snack of fish crackers while we made Pirate Spyglasses to take home. We used pirate stickers, jewel stickers and colorful beads to decorate our spyglasses:

I have one more picture to share ~ just for fun. ;o) It is our youngest storytime pirate. She is only 2 months old! So precious!

Enjoy your weekend!
And, as always,

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!