Treasure Hunt

With International Pirate Day coming up on the 19th September we are embracing all things PIRATES in our house until then. We started our Pirate Adventure last weekend when the boys went to a friend's 5th Pirate Party. Their enthusiasm for all things Pirates has been lots of fun and I plan on sharing all of our activities with you over the next couple of weeks.

I don't always buy costumes for the boys, however we seem to have a number of Pirate parties coming up so for $12 from K Mart I purchased these. Generally, the boys use their imaginations and put together costumes from our dress-up box.

Even something as simple as these off cuts of material from spotlight are great to put on as bandannas for Pirate role-play.

Pirate stickers are available from most discount stores and are great to use for craft activities.

All pirates need a telescope! I covered two empty paper towel rolls with colored paper. The boys then happily decorated them with marker pens and stickers. Mmmm what else does a pirate need?? Treasure of course, but where is that treasure? Well let's make a treasure map.....

To stain our treasure map we put some coffee in a bowl and added a small amount of water.

Use some cotton wool and wash over the paper with the coffee.

** I burnt the edges of the paper using a lighter to give the treasure map look. I did this when the boys were not around as I didn't want them to see me lighting the paper.

Often it's hard to set up activities for children of different ages and stages of development. This activity was perfect as both Master 3 and Master 5 were able to work independently on their map. We have been reading a number of our favourite Pirate books and looking at Pirate maps so the boys were very keen to draw their own maps and add the stickers.

Ahoy Me Hearties I'm off to find some treasure!

A telescope in hand, a piece of material on their head as a bandanna and a detailed treasure map in hand the hunt began!


Below are some of our favourite Pirate Stories .....