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When I first started teaching 4th grade over a decade ago, four out of five teachers on my grade level had two years or less teaching experience. We were young and energetic, clueless but passionate. Some days we managed to make our classes somewhat behave, most days we taught them most of what we were supposed to, but every day we found new ways to have fun. My favorite idea we dreamt up lives on to this day each fall on Pirate Day.
Fourth grade social studies curriculum in North Carolina focuses on state history, and pirates are a big part of the history of our coast. At the end of first quarter, we spend a whole day learning about the pirates of North Carolina coast, including but not limited to Blackbeard. We allow the students to join us in dressing like pirates (short of anything that resembles a weapon), and we rotate to the different classrooms doing pirate math, reading pirates and playing pirate games. It's my favorite day of the year!Our local chamber of commerce generously awards thousands of dollars in grants at the beginning of each school year and this year I was fortunate enough to receive a grant to spice up Pirate Day with a new game. My husband and I enjoy playing the strategy board game Catan with our friends, and I recently discovered Catan Junior is pirate-themed. This game features social studies, math and reading skills (vocabulary, resources, supply and demand, trading 2:1, etc.) and I got to spend the day teaching all the fourth graders to play this year. We look forward to playing it more this year, as the kids loved it!
While playing Catan Junior, one of my reading students said, "Wow! This is so much fun. And I thought you'd just read us that book," pointing to a book I'd had on display all week. He wasn't all wrong; I am a sucker for reading a good book, and I did enjoy the book with my homeroom class at a different time during the day. The book is P is for Pirate by Eve Bunting, and you can download a free Book Walk I created to accompany the read aloud here.
I am also a sucker for cute things at Target, and this year I splurged on a pirate ship for the hallway. For years, we've made a 2-D pirate ship display on the wall, and my last year's students were quick to come by on Friday and say, "You got them a real pirate ship?!? No fair!" It was a pretty big hit, and I took each child's photo in the ship and sent to their parents on Class Dojo. I also had printed pictures before Pirate Day, filtering them using an app called Pirate Pix so students could have their Pirate Picture on display all day.
One of my favorite resources for Pirate Day is this DVD from National Geographic. It has some great bonus features, and I always show the first ten minutes to my students to give them a more accurate representation of pirate life than what they've been exposed to up until this age. I use the following discussion questions after watching those first ten minutes:
No themed day is complete without a fun snack. We enjoyed Pirate's Pot Luck at the end of the day.
Themed days are so much fun; we do another in the spring called First in Flight Day. You can read more about that here. I'm currently trying to think of one more for winter time-- perhaps a Lost Colony murder mystery? Does your grade level do themed days? I'd love to hear about them in the comments.
