Materials Monday - Pirate Unit

Arrrrr ye ready to be walkin' the plank there, matey?

Okay, so that was my best impression of a pirate. Good thing this isn't a video blog because my pirate voice really needs some work.

This Materials Monday features a lot of activities that have to do with pirates. I love pirates. I love the pirate theme, and all school children that I know love pirates just as much as I do.

Most of the activities included in this blog post could be used to target similar goals. However, the point of this is to give people a lot of options, so while you can target prepositions during the barrier game activity, I also uploaded a separate prepositions activity that focuses simply on prepositions (plus, the pictures are bigger). That way you don't have to bother downloading and printing the barrier game if you only want to target prepositions.

1. The first activity I am featuring is the Pirate Barrier Game. This barrier game is played just like any other barrier game. It allows you to target a bunch of speech and language goals (for example - following directions, describing pictures, articulation, prepositions, etc.)

Pirate Barrier Game picture - shows all materials included in the download.

Most SLPs know what to do with a barrier game, but for those of you who don't have much experience using an activity like this, I'll describe what you should do.

First, print all of the pages (except the title page of course) and laminate everything. You will want two copies (or more) of this activity. Then select the background you want. I included the plain blue to be water and the brown is similar to the side or deck of the ship. You could even cut these pictures to create your own background (if you're extremely creative and want to create a landscape, then hey, share it with me). 

Next, cut all of the pictures out. You'll want to give each student playing (or if you do this activity with one student then you should be the one to play along) their own copy of the pictures and background.

Finally, target whatever language or artic concept you want. Have the child following directions and place each picture wherever you instruct him/her to. Use prepositions, describing words, etc. I included some pictures that are the same except for a color or a gender so that the children can learn to be more specific. Then have the child tell you where to place your pictures! Make sure you compare both of your pictures at the end to make sure they match up!

2. The next activity is the I Have, Who Has? Pirate game. Now I did not use a template for this, so I do apologize in advance if the pictures don't line up as they print out. You should print these out front/back so that one side has the I Have pictures and the backside has the Who Has pictures. The printing worked with my printer, so I hope no one has any issues with this.

3. My third activity is a Pirate Prepositions activity. Look at the picture below for the instructions:

Now obviously you can target prepositions during the barrier game activity (as I mentioned above), but this activity is more focused on only prepositions (and I suppose following directions). The same clip art is included but with only five or six (?) pictures that are bigger in size.

4. My fourth activity is the Articulation Pirate Coins activity. Now this took a long time to complete but only because I wanted provide you all with ALL of the phonemes that you need. That is why I took the poll two weeks ago.

Example of /r/ articulation coins.

Included in the download is phonemes /r/ and /l/, /k/ and /g/, /s/ and /z/, /f/ and /v/, and "sh", "th", and "ch". Of course at the end is two pages of blank coins so that you can create your own artic cards or activities using these coins.

Simply use these coins and a treasure box. You can have the student pick their coins out of the treasure box and say the word a specific number of times, use it in a sentence, rhyme, etc, or you can place all of the coins in front of the student and have him/her place the coin in the treasure box once they successfully completed their turn.

5. My next activity is a Language Treasure Hunt activity. This targets following directions, WH-questions, and describing things. The instructions are included in the download, but I'll highlight them below.

6. My last activity is a game board activity. It's called Cannonball Craze! It is great to use during a therapy session during drill or when using those old picture cards. It's pretty fun, too! Yes, you will need some little pieces to play with, but you can use just about anything (old Monopoly pieces, Sorry pieces, scraps of colored paper, etc.).

Note: ALL of the clip art used in these activities is from Scrappin Doodles! Check them out!

Now, some of the materials do require additional materials. I know for the artic coins activity and the language treasure hunt activity you should have a treasure chest/box (depending on how you use these materials). I found this (click) great treasure box from Oriental Trading for $4.25 for a dozen. Then you would have a bunch of small treasure boxes for future pirate-themed materials (or even a child's birthday party).

Example of treasure box from Oriental Trading.

Also, I was working with some students on turn-taking skills, and we would often play a simple board game to target this goal. We would obviously work on describing the board game pictures, and I would ask the students to tell me how to play the board game (after we had played it a few times before) for sequencing skills. Amazon.com has a great pirate board game. It's called Pirate-Opoly. I haven't had a chance to play this game yet, but the reviews on Amazon are promising.

Finally, Speech Room News featured some pirate activities a few weeks ago. Head on over there and see what Jenna cooked up!

Download all of the freebies here:
Articulation Pirate Coins
Cannonball Craze Board Game
I Have, Who Has Pirate Game
Language Treasure Hunt
Pirate Barrier Game
Pirate Prepositions

Note: Please be patient as these documents load. Some documents (especially the articulation pirate coins download) is extremely big, so it will take some time to load.

Please leave a comment or share this page with a friend! What do you like on this page? What else should I create with the pirate theme? Are there any additional activities I should create? Let me know!