Talk Like a Pirate Day

A lesser-known holiday, but fun just the same! Read all about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day

For our pirate day, we had the neighbor-boys (is that actually a word? My mom used to say things like that all the time...neighbor-girl, neighbor-lady...) ANYWAY, we had the boys from across the street (better?) over for some pirate crafts.

First, we painted treasure maps.

I cut up an old sheet (it was decently thick) and serged the edges so they wouldn't fray. I used a Sharpie to draw random land and islands (read: blobs) around the maps.

 I taped the maps to the table and the kids painted them with acrylic paint. I gave them lots of shades of green, brown, blue, and yellow for the land and water, and then they used black to make an X to represent the treasure.

While the maps dried, we made newspaper swords.  Super easy. Lay about 5 sheets of newspaper open flat, and roll from one corner to the other.  Tape the roll shut.  Fold one end in and tape down to make a handle.  Slide a cardboard disk down to make the guard (I think that's what it's called) and tape into place.

We intended to paint them with a metallic acrylic paint, but that idea quickly became unpopular when the kids realized they would have to wait while the swords dried rather than playing with them. So not much paint.  But a lot of fun!

Arrrrgh!