Pirate's Boat, Hat, and Map for Pirate's Day at School

 

     I bought a new camera to take blog photos, but I haven't figured it out yet.  They still come out blurry.  But...we are making over 85 pirate boats with the first graders at school for the 130th day of school.  I have another post where it shows you how to make one out of a pizza box.  If you want to see it go here to see cardboard boat . 

       But, I couldn't do that with four first grade classes.  I worked and worked and worked on a pattern, so that the pieces would all fit on on 8.5" x 11" piece of cardstock.  I removed the color from the previous pieces I made to glue onto the cardboard.  I added more windows and cannons.    Why?  Because I made up a math counting sheet where all the answers add up to 130.

     There are 66 square window panes, 12 canons, 5 railings, 11 windows, 35 spindles, and 1 bow on the boat.   Of course, you could ask other questions to add up other things.

     

                      

 

After getting so close in pattern making 101, I decided I had to have a bigger piece of paper.  So, I went up to the 11" x 17" size.  I know they have those sizes at school, but they don't normally have cardstock in that size at office supply stores.  Kinkos might.

I knew my husband's office did.  They use it for the front of  brochures.  

If you are looking at the bottom of the pattern, do not worry about the missing lines.  Those are flaps that tuck behind the back piece.  Just cut along the boxes as if the lines were there.  Cut out the entire outside of the shape.  Also cut out the two narrow triangle spaces on both side of the back piece with the three windows.  At the top, make a small cut to separate the two flaps at the bow.

Because you are folding the paper up along the sides of the large triangle which makes the bottom, you can do this along the edge of a desk or table.  Then fold up the three back boxes.  With the flaps turned up, use a glue stick and rub it along the plain flaps and fold those over each other.  Fold the back up and it will stick to the top flap.  Fold the two front flaps in, glue, and stick together.  The teachers were delighted that it was such and easy project.  The team ordered 18" dowels from Amazon.com.  We are going to write pirate stories on the sails.

 If you punch a hole in the middle of the top and bottom of each sheet, it should slide right onto the dowel. This will be printed on 8.5" x 11" paper.

I love, love, love this clipart

Landscaped lined sail with smaller more lines for eager writers

If the kids want to make patterns on the sails, I would have them write their stories in their journals, then do final copies in INK on the sails, so that they could lightly color over their printing. Or they could print on one side and color the back.

 I tried to hold a dowel up with clay the team already had, but it did not work.  One of the teachers suggested gluing marshmallows into the boat.  I have thin styrofoam sheets I might cut up.  If you have a suggestion...please leave a comment.  I could use your ideas.

 

Surprise:  there's an extra.  I found a pattern for a pirate's hat on Pinterest.

8.5" wide if you're printing it

I folded a piece of 12" x 18" black construction paper in half (the fat way) and printed out the pattern so that it fairly fit the one half. (I had to make it smaller than an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper).  When I cut it out by placing it on the fold, i cut the slit open in the middle.  It fit exactly on my head with a front and back.  It's an awesome design. I  AM going to make them in foam for the Fourth of July, but add ribbons to them.,  but since we are making 85 of them, it was too expensive. I am using sentence strips for the bands. We can just measure them around each student's head and staple. So...I folded ANOTHER piece of 12" x 18" construction paper in half the skinny way.  I cut the first hat in half by continuing the slit until I had just a front and back piece.  I put that piece on the second construction paper and enlarged it with a pencil freehand so that it was 2" bigger on the top.  This way the sentence strip doesn't show. 

                 I edged the hat with a white crayon.  You could have the kids paint the edges or glue them and sprinkle white/colored glitter on the edges.

 I glued the two hats together ONLY on the ends, then slipped it over the sentence strip hand and stapled the paper to the bottom to the sentence strip band.

You only need one skull and bones per hat.  The kids can color the scarf any color they choose.  Just glue it on the front of the hat.  I ordered turkey feathers from Amazon.com in bulk.  Just like Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his hat, so will we.  By the way, when they called him a "macaroni" it meant he was a "dandy."  I love telling first graders about that expression.

    I used two lengths of 6 foot brown paper glued and taped together to make the map. I already had the pirate icons from the office Margarita/Pirate party last September.  So I enlarged them.  It was my hubby's idea to use the blue painters tape (1/2") to make the 12" square boxes.  I numbered the bottom row 1-6 and the left hand side A-F to make a grid.  I will explain the the first graders how to use the grid to find things on a map.  

    I am also going to tell them a story about how the island was overcome with frogs and the pirates had to figure out a way to deal with them.  Since we've discussed simple machines, I am bringing in my two stomping catapults to have them fling bean bag frogs onto the map.  They will earn points for their class by landing on the icons--which are worth different points.