Whewww I must say that the beginning of the school year has gotten me BEAT! I don't know about you but I come home from school and am beyond exhausted. I don't know what it is about the beginning of the year but it is wearing out. Anyone else in the same boat? If you're not pleaseeeeeee let me know your tips and tricks. Any Whooo. Ahoy Matey!!! Did you know September 19th is National Talk Like a Pirate Day? Oh how I love me any excuse to add some fun into me classroom. So for the last two years I celebrated the day with me pirate friends and have an educational PIRATE DAY! Arrrrgh you ready to learn more about it, Mateys?! Pirate day in my classroom is a day where we do all things PIRATE. We learn how to speak like pirates and do pirate themed activities in reading, centers, math, and writing. This year, I didn't inform my firsties that it would de PIRATE day. Instead I let them be surprised when they came to school. When they arrived to our classroom they were greeted by an Ahoy! banner and our Talk Like a Pirate Day Sign! You can grab my Talk Like a Pirate Day sign for free below! And of course they were greeted by me dressed and talking like a pirate! When my students entered our classroom they came in to see a pirate ship displayed on the ActivBoard and instrumental pirate music playing. They then began decorating their very own pirate hats from Yeehaw Teaching in Texas. You can grab her template by clicking here! After they were done decorating their hat I stapled them onto sentence strips so they could wear them during our PIRATE filled day. The stories above are some read alouds that I have read in the past on Pirate Day. However, I must say, How I became a Pirate has become one of my pirate favorites. This year I tied our pirate story to our reading standard: Describing characters, setting, and important events. With this I used a reading response page from my Pirate Day pack found on TPT. After reading the story my students worked with a partner to sequence the events in the story. In my Pirate Day pack you will find multiple response pages that can be used with any pirate book. After our pirate story, it was time for a sight word treasure hunt. Captain Hook sent us a message in a bottle telling us that he had lost his treasure and needed our help!! Prior to this my aide placed sight word cards around our school. We then took our treasure maps sent by Captain Hook and were off to search for his missing treasure. As we went around the school we wrote & read the sight word cards. At the end of our treasure hunt we found Captain Hook's treasure!!! His treasure (Pirate's Booty Popcorn) was found in a black skull and crossbone bucket from the Dollar Tree and had a BIG red X above it. If you want to use something other than food here are some other ideas that I've used in the past. Most if not all of these treasures can be found at Party City or Target! After our Treasure Hunt it was then time for writing. During writing, I allowed the students to choose a pirate writing prompt. Their pirate prompt choices were... If I were a pirate, If I found a treasure chest, or How to be a pirate! Typically during writing I play classical music since writing time is QUIET time in my classroom so this year I played ocean sounds with a scenic beach view to make it fit into our pirate theme. I was able to find this channel on YouTube. By this point in our day it had been pretty eventful and me mateys were in need of a brain break or two. However, the pirate fun must continue so here are a few pirate brain breaks we used. GoNoodle: Pirate Prep A Pirate You Shall Be 5-A-Day Pirates Here is a picture of my students enjoying the 5-A-Day Pirates brain break. For math we used gold coins as our manipulatives and treasure chest ten frames. We were practicing using number bonds and part part whole mats to represent numbers so we played Treasure Bonds to continue getting that practice. There are also pirate videos on YouTube that you can share with your students during your math block! Click the links below to check them out! If you are adding try this Adding with a Pirate YouTube video If you are subtracting try this YouTube Subtracting with a Priate video We had a great day filled with Pirate fun and learning. The activities throughout this post can be found in my Pirate Day Activity pack on TeachersPayTeachers. If you are interested in taking a look at these activities, click here. Did you celebrate National Talk Like a Pirate Day in your classroom? If so, I'd love to hear about your favorite activities!