According to this website, International Talk Like a Pirate Day officially started in 2002, and has been going strong for a full 15 years and counting! Yet for some reason, it took me until 2017 to do a library program acknowledging it. So finally, this year, it happened. I remembered the date, got it in the newsletter, and planned the program in time to acknowledge International Talk Like a Pirate Day 2017-- and it was entirely mediocre!
In fact, this might officially wind up being my shortest blog post yet because there's just, straight up, nothing to say. I set the room up for fifteen kids but had a total of three + one little brother and three adults. 😞 (Unrelated: there are symbols on Blogger now! Hooray!)
Anyway, I started out with two books: Pirate Pete Lynne Benton (which is an easy reader) and Pirate Nap: A Book of Colors by Danna Smith. I can't say I was totally wild about either book but I had a hard time finding age-appropriate, storytime-appropriate books and these two, at the very least, filled the need. They kids seemed to feel the same way I did about the books-- eh.
Then we learned some pirate lingo. I made this slideshow, which I printed out front-and-back, so that it would have the regular English on the front and the "Pirate English" on the back. I found that holding up the regular English, having the kids try to guess, and then turning the page around was a lot of fun for everyone!
Then we moved on to hat decorating, which was 100% thanks to this kit from Oriental Trading, but was a lot of fun too!
And last, we played Pirate Ship Ring Toss, which was possibly the highlight of the program. And how could it not be? There was a huge, inflatable pirate ship and throwing things involved!
On the way out, I gave them pirate bouncy balls to take home. We had them in storage so this was a good chance to get rid of them, and the kids were excited about them too!
What worked least: I hate to say it, but I have to: The books were totally the least fun part of this program. They were just blah. I looked through SO many but I just never found any pirate books that I felt excited about. Too bad!
What worked best: Pirate Ship Ring Toss. You can't beat it. The kids were absolutely enthralled with the inflatable pirate ship from the moment they entered the room.
I used There was an old pirate who swallowed a fish by Jennifer Ward, Swap by Steve Light, and Sheep on a ship by Nancy Shaw.
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