A Pirate's Life For Us!
Project Origins
One recent day, during a short burst of acceptable air quality in an otherwise smoky, cooped-up kind of day, Lukas called everyone over for a “team huddle” in the front yard. Team huddles are something the children are quite familiar with, as I often use this as a gathering tool when we are in need of a new plan or transition in our day. The children excitedly huddled around Lukas, arms interlocked, and he whispered, “Follow me.” He tiptoed across the yard, the rest of the children quietly in tow, until he reached the pear tree. Upon arrival, he gasped and quietly announced, “We found it. We found…the gold.”
Lukas was successful in his attempt to lead an activity. I love seeing the children truly put themselves out there like that, taking a big social risk as they grow in their abilities to communicate and connect sincerely with others. Lukas was finding more nuanced, adult-like ways to communicate and accomplish a task than merely reciting, “Will you play with me?” He combined his imaginative abilities with his socio-emotional curiosities to gather an entire group of children and embark on a quest. Everyone was all-in. After reaching the gold under the pear tree, the children then needed to work together to decide where their game would continue. Berkeley followed Lukas’ lead and began adding a pirate narrative to his gold-finding game. She introduced some pirates that were protecting their treasure, and the whole-group imaginative game began to blossom.
Soon, the smoke began to return, the game began to near its end, and the time to return indoors was approaching. We gathered the children and asked them a few questions about their game, about treasure, and about pirates. From this conversation, the children decided that we needed to construct a big pirate ship. One that everyone could fit into! We devised a plan to retrieve our biggest wooden blocks and move the classroom furniture to make space for such a large task. When we began, however, we were quickly reminded of the egocentrism of the young, preoperational mind. Rather than recalling each others’ hopeful plans of building a ship for everyone, each child began silently working on their own, personal block ship. Ronin pondered aloud, “What can I use to build the seat of the pirate ship?” and ultimately settled on stacking blocks tall enough to sit on. Berkeley went with a different approach, announcing, “Even we need windows. Even we need a driver for the pirate ship,” and retrieved her Minnie Mouse nap time lovey, creatively propping her up against a book stand on the floor. She added, “My Minnie needs treasure,” and neatly piled all of our check in stones at the front of her tiny ship. Mixing her small-world play and pretend play, she then suggested, “Now we need our pirate look things!” and peered around the classroom through her makeshift telescope.
Finding inspiration in invitations to play
Reflecting on our pirate-filled morning with the children, we realized that the idea of pirates was unique in that all of the children expressed interest in this type of play. We decided to put out some feelers and see if their interest in pirates would prove to be worth exploring. In the following days, all areas of our classroom space had some pirate influence, and the children seemed to find lots of deep engagement in these activities (a sign that we’re on the right track and that the children are using these tools to construct their learning!). We filled a sensory tray with treasure hunt materials in an invitation to dig and feel. We placed costumes and props around the dramatic play center that might inspire some further pirate imagination. We created an artistic invitation to create paper flags, or jolly rogers, as we all began to call them. We used blocks to create more ships, and many more dashes of pirate inspiration were hidden throughout the classroom materials.
One day, a new friend came to visit: a pirate piñata. He arrived at Together Time with his treasure chest and said a quiet hello to all of the children. They had lots of questions to ask him, and quickly learned that he is very fragile and must be handled with extreme care. His introduction was so well-received, and he would go on to introduce many new pirate concepts to us as our project work continued. Our pirate friend has become a perfect tool for our young children to practice their gentle, thoughtful touches, as they know that he will be no more if we handle him too roughly. The children are also using him as they continue to construct their understandings of turn-taking and ownership, as they ask him each time they’d like to use some of his treasure. His answer is up to the children to decide, yet they are always respectful toward him and make sure to take great care of his booty.
Let’s chat: Pirate discussions
Discussions, discussions, discussions! I’m always implementing some sort of discussion, list, or other collaborative brainstorming session into the beginnings of in-depth project work. I love this because it provides such a great source for whole-group reflection and for measurable growth in our work. We began one Thursday by racking our brains and compiling a list of the things we know about pirates:
“They build sailboats.” -Ronin
“Treasure!” - Berkeley
“Arrrrrrrrr!!!” - Dominic
“I know they build pirate ships and they carry houses.” - Lukas
“They fight all of their friend pirates because sometimes they get mad at them.” - Berkeley
“Pirates have boats…pirate ships.” - Berkeley
“Pirates have maps!” - Ronin
“They say, ‘Arr, matey!’” - Berkeley
A few days later, Ronin arrived at preschool with a new idea that was exciting to us all: he had a pirate name. Ronin let us know that his pirate name is “Boo Boo.” We loved this creative idea from Ronin and all of the children gave themselves pirate names, as well! Adelynn became “Dog Woof” the pirate, Berkeley became “Pink Shirt + Pink Pants” the pirate, and Miah became pirate “Dory.” Braden took the name, “Captain America,” Lukas chose “Pirate Ship Bus Submarine,” and Dominic became pirate “Balance Beam.” After a few days of pirate name excitement, we decided that we should name our pirate piñata. Each child suggested their own name as a name for our pirate friend, but when I pointed out how confusing that might be when we try to address one another, we began to get a few more creative suggestions. We narrowed it down to four for a vote: Purple Pants, Big Zip Up, Cubby, and Brown Foot Black Foot. There was one clear winner, and our pirate gained the name Brown Foot Black Foot: a quick, child-driven exercise in color recognition after his brown peg leg and his black left boot.