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Here’s how to make a puppet of Captain Seasalt that can steer the ship!

You need:

• This template
• Bristol board or cardstock
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Hole punch or Pencil
• Seven brass fasteners
• Two popsicle sticks
• Clear tape
• A feather

Print out the template. Roughly cut out shapes and glue with a glue stick onto bristle board . This step will save you from cutting the fine detail twice. Cut out all the pieces: the Captain’s body, his two upper arms, his two lower arms (with big sleeves), and the ship’s wheel with his hands attached.

Use a hole punch or a pencil to carefully make all twelve holes making sure you get through both layers. Punch an additional hole in the hat to place a feather .

Glue one popsicle stick to the back of the ship’s wheel, right below the hole. Check the photo to make sure that you’ve positioned it properly, relative to where the Captain’s hands are.

Glue the other popsicle stick to the back of the Captain’s body, making sure not to cover the hole in his tummy. While you’re at it, feed the feather into place and tape the tip down. Trim the feather from the bottom if it’s too long.

Now it’s time to put him together! Collect your brass fasteners and use them to assemble the pieces. Attach his upper arms at the tabs on his shoulders, then attach his lower arms in front of his upper arms at the elbow. Finally, attach his cuffs over his hand tabs. You may want to turn the brass fasteners in the holes to help loosen them, so that everything turns smoothly. Tape fasteners into place so they don’t rotate and stick out.

You’re done! To perform your puppet, hold a popsicle stick in each hand. Use one stick to hold the Captain’s body upright. Use the other stick hold the ship’s wheel. Move in opposing directions.
Captain Seasalt’s arms will follow the wheel, and it will look like he’s really steering the ship!

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Ahoy, mateys! Yarrr! All aboard the pirate ship for some crafty fun. We set sail soon, so batten down the hatches, grab your craft supplies, and get ready to heave ho!

(That’s pirate talk for “let’s make some pirate hats together! Let’s get started!”)

• 2 sheets of black construction paper
• Colorful construction paper for feathers
• Pencil crayons
• Glue stick
• Scissors
• Tape

Steps

Tape the long edges of two sheets of black construction paper together.

Fold both pieces together with the taped edge on the inside and positioned at the top.
Holding these taped-edge corners in two hands, bring both corners down until they meet in the centre. Fold the edges and use tape to help hold corners in place.

Give the hat some shape! Round off the corners of the hat’s brim by drawing a curve and trimming it with scissors, cutting both layers at the same time.

Fold the two flaps up on either side. Glue the brim corners together.

You can decorate your pirate hat with some fancy gold trim or a skull by drawing with pencil crayons. TIP: To make colors really stand out on the black paper, draw with white first and layer other colors on top.

Decorate the hat by adding some feathers . You can make feathers out of construction paper by folding a piece of paper in half. Next, cut out half a leaf shape and trim some feather lines. Open up your feather and glue it inside the hat’s brim.

Add some extra pirate panache by attaching a bandana! Size some construction paper to the bottom width of the hat.

Draw your bandana shape and glue it to your hat. You can add a piece of yarn to secure the pirate hat to your little one’s head.

Yarrr! You’re ready to set sail on the high seas, Captain! Have fun on your pirate adventures!

Still in a piratey mood? Check out Captain Seasalt & The ABC Pirates as they discover the alphabet archipelago and learn about nature, animals, and the ABCs!

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Try some of these ideas in the classroom or at home!

• This song is a great one to get little ones up and moving. Have your students sit in a circle as they move their bodies forward and backwards and their arms up and down, or have them standing up and making bigger movements with their whole bodies, forward, backward, up, down, this way, that way.
• This is a great song to introduce different kinds of weather. If your students are new to this vocabulary, trying using weather flashcards as you sing.
• It’s also a great song to introduce and review directional vocabulary. Words and phrases like, this way, that way, forward, backward, up and down, and over. Have your students follow you as you say each word. “This way!” “Forward!” “Down!” “That way!” They can either sit or stand while they do this. If they are sitting, have them lean with their bodies and do up and down with their arms.
• You can also do this as a game of Simon Says. Once your students are good at the game, try making purposeful mistakes for an extra challenge and see if they can do as you say, not as you do.
• Role play this song by making a part of your classroom a boat, and choosing one student to be the captain. The captain invites students onto the boat one at a time, singing the song, and doing the action. Each students can sing about a different kind of weather as they climb aboard!
• This is a great song to sing during a water unit about sea creatures or oceans. If you have a water table, play the song and have students act out the movements using a toy boat. This is also great interactive play for bath time!
• Try our Popsicle Stick Pirates craft, and move your handmade pirates along to the song.

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Ahoy! Welcome to pirate month you landlubbers! We will soon make pirate me hearties out of the lot of yer! Pirates aren’t so bad laddies. Why I bet you’d love what we love to do. Any guesses? Ai! When we’re not looting other ships we be treasure hunting! But to get on our way we will be needing a real live, genuine treasure map. Between you and me us pirates have our sneaky ways of hiding treasure and making sure no else be finding them.

How? I hear you ask?

Oh come now. I couldn’t be telling you that could I?

That is… unless you become a jolly roger sailing pirate like me! Savvy?!

Yes?! Well shiver me timbers! Good, good!

Yo ho ho, well then! Lean in and listen closely…

What you will need:

• Some imagination!
• White paper
• Pens and colouring in pencils
• Paintbrush/Cotton Swab
• Lemon juice in a bowl (fresh or bottled)
• Heat tool: a hair dryer will do

Instructions:

1. Talk about what you might like to be on your treasure map with your child. Explore what will be on an island or in the sea. Sharks? Mermaids? Goblins? Sirens? Octopus? Dangerous forests or erupting volcanoes? The more dramatic, the more exciting!
2. Depending on the age of your child either get them to draw out their treasure map or with them explaining what they want, you the adult draw it. If they would like, they can colour it in and even add names for parts of the map.
3. Squeeze your lemon juice into a bowl and with a small paintbrush decide where you would like your X marks the spot to be on your map. You can make this part a game. Either you or your child can draw and X and let it dry without the other person seeing. You can also add the route to actually get to the treasure too as I’m sure many pirates have tried and failed to get to the treasure with lots of traps and obstacles on the way!
4. Once the lemon has dried it should be for the most part on first glance transparent. The heat tool can now be gotten out, turned on aimed at the map. Slowly you will see parts of your map start to turn brown. If you have done a trail you will need to move your heat tool along the whole trail for it to be revealed. This will also then lead you to your X marks the spot and TA DA you’ll have located the treasure!

The mystery of the hidden treasure is solved! Now to get passed all those obstacles safely… *enter some pirate role playing*

Suggestion in how to approach this activity.
Why not make an afternoon or morning out of it. If you have any pirate dressing up costumes put those on. If you don’t can you make a makeshift one? For example like tying a scarf around one eye to make an eye patch, tying a handkerchief or scarf around your head like a bandana.

When the Invisible Ink Treasure Map is dried, why not roll it up and tie some ribbon around it. Then you can hide it somewhere and give your children clues how to get to it. After you have discovered the route to the treasure inside the map why not keep the adventure alive and keep role playing! Do you have a climbing frame outside? Make that your ship to escape! Have fun with it, you may be surprised how much you end up enjoying yourself!

The science behind the invisible ink
When you apply lemon juice to paper and it heat up, the applied lemon juice will darken. Lemon juice is a weak acid and when it is put on paper the carbon compounds in the juice are sucked up by the fibres in the paper. This softens the paper fibres. As heat is added the carbon is broken causing the chemical bonds to break down. When the carbon comes into contact with the oxygen in the air is burns. Another word for this is oxidation. The affect being that it will darken. The same process happens when you cut a banana, apple or even avocado up and leave it in contact with the air, they all begin to oxidise and turn brown.

Tip:
If you don’t have lemon juice, you can create invisible ink with equal amounts of baking soda and water. The same reaction happens when it comes into contact with heat. You can also hold it up to a light and see the invisible ink.

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Ahoy! I be called Kraken Loot, and I be the Cap’n of my ship. I hear on the grapevine you Scallywag Landlubbers are wanting to become Buccaneers? Well shiver me timbers! Ye made a grand choice. I hear ye say you have a ship ready? Well Yo ho ho! Ye came to the right place me hearties. Lean in and listen carefully, ye’ll be needing to make a Jolly Roger! But before ye can make that, ye be needing to learn about our history and the history of pirate flags if ye our to make it in our world. Ye see all ye law abiding citizens have a different flag history to ours. Flags be like a sea language, but for me mateys and I, they be part of what makes us formidable and scary. So sit back Landlubbers, I’ll soon make pirates out of ye Lads and Lasses. Pssst. Don’t worry, I’ll try be speaking yer Landlubber language in this next bit.

Pirates who were they and what did they do?

Pirates have existed since ancient times. One of the first records of piracy was in 14th century and they were referred to as the ‘Sea People’ or ocean raiders that attacked the Greeks. However it is not until the 17th and early 18th centuries when piracy had their Golden Age (1650-1720). Pirates were (and still are) highwaymen and women of the seas. They robbed and looted ships for their treasure and goods and were notoriously dangerous. Most had fearsome reputations and this was often displayed for all to see through their flags on their ship. Their flags announced them when they wanted to be revealed and they were displayed to spread fear to any that dared cross their paths. To fly a pirate flag, was to declare you had nothing to lose as being caught by the Navy would be punishable by death. To even have a pirate flag aboard a ship, was to mean you were guilty. Infamous pirates that were caught in Britain were often hung along the River Thames so that all boats coming in and out of London would see them.

There were three types of pirates recorded from the Golden Age of Piracy

1. Privateers, were used within war time and they were ‘lawful’ pirates who had ‘letters of marque’ issued by Admirals in the Navy. These letters stated that they could plunder and attack ships of enemy nations. They were respected and were not considered to be pirates.
2. Buccaneers, pirates that were from and worked around the West Indies. They attacked Spanish ships that moved around the Caribbean.
3. Corsairs, were Christian or Muslim pirates that moved around the Mediterranean.

Pirate Law

During the Golden Age of Piracy, a Pirate Code was created in order to keep crews in line. Most were violent and greedy and in order to keep peace on ship out at sea Captains together drew up a code of rules to live by. A few of these rules were the following; if a fellow pirate was caught in the act of stealing, they would be marooned on a desert island or put to death, in the evening all candles were to be put out so that the crew could rest, everyone had an equal vote on important issues and fighting was firmly not allowed, many captains punishing anyone that disrupted the peace.

Flags at sea

Maritime flags were created in order to be like a language so that ships could communicate from vast distances. Often they would have flags of country of origin. It is recorded that in 1697 an English Admiralty Law came into effect, stating that all privateers were to fly ‘Red Jack’s’ (a red flag) in order for them to be distinguished between their Navy ships. If the ship that the privateers were attacking did not surrender on site then they were to raise their black flag to indicate no mercy would be given. After the War of the Spanish Succession had ended in 1714, many privateers went on to full piracy and it is thought that they simply decorated these black and red flags with their own designs.

It is unsurprising then that pirates often used false coloured flags to trick oncoming ships, once the ship was close enough they would raise their pirate flag as a symbol of who they were and that they were about to attack.

The Jolly Roger

Pirate flags were soon called, ‘Jolly Rogers’ and they were used for identification of pirate ship. A Jolly Roger generally had a skull and crossbones symbol on a black flag, though they were many variations. Many pirates used this type of flag in the 1710s, including Black Sam Bellamy, Edward England and John Taylor. In Charles Johnson’s book, ‘A General History of the Pirates’ published in Britain in 1724, he specifically mentions, Bartholomew Roberts and Francis Spriggs as pirates that called their flags ‘Jolly Roger’s.’ Both had different designs which leads historians to believe that it is a generic name for a black pirate flag and not just for a skull and crossbones one.

Why was it called Jolly Roger?

No one for sure knows, though there are many theories! Here are a couple of them.

1. The French first flew a red privateering flag called, ‘Joli Rouge’, meaning ‘pretty red’. It is thought the British stole the name and simply just used it for their black flags.
2. It comes from a derivation from the old English term ‘Old Roger’, which was slang for ‘the Devil’. The word ‘Roger’ also deriving from the word rouge which in the Cambridge Dictionary is described as, ‘behaving in ways that are not expected or not normal, often in a way that causes damage.’ And if related to biology described as, ‘a rogue animal is a dangerous wild animal that lives apart from the rest of its group.’ Sounds rather apt right?

Famous Pirates and their flags to look up:

Thomas Tew (1692)
Emmanuel Wynn (1700)
John Quelch (1703)
Christopher Moody (1713)
Edward Teach (1716)
Stede Bonnet (1717)
John Rackham (1718)
Edward Low (1720)

Famous Female Pirates to look up

Jean De Clisson (1300-1359)
Grace O’Malley (1530-1603)
Anne Diey-Le-Vent (1661-1710)
Mary Read (c. 1695-1721)
Anne Bonny (1698-1782)
Ching Shih (1775-1810)

Savvy? Ye got all that?

Right then on to the important stuff. There are many ways to make your own pirate flag, from super easy to more complicated versions. We have stuck to a super quick and simple way to make a pirate flag with your children so that they can get on and start playing pirates as soon as it’s made.

Making your own Jolly Roger

What you will need:

• Black A3 card
• White and red oil pastels
• Industrial tape
• Broomstick / large branch
• Scissors (optional)

AND/OR

• Red Card
• Black and white oil pastels

Instructions:

1. Show them some pictures of some examples of Jolly Rogers. If they want to plan out their flag, they may do so on a separate sheet of paper.
2. Give them a piece of A3 card, either black or red. If you use black card, give them a piece of red and white oil pastels. If you use red card, given them black and white oil pastels.
3. Get them to draw onto the card their pirate flag design. If your child needs a little help, why not draw the design they want on the paper and let them colour it in.
4. If your child would like the flag to look worn and ripped, cut a zig zag line across the end of the flag.
5. Once completed find a large wooden stick and attach the card flag to the stick with industrial tape.
6. Put in place of your pirate ships!

Now that you’ve got a flag, choose your pirate name!

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Find The Pirate Treasure!
Your secret letters are: timef

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