Pirates and mermaids are a theme that fascinates kids and adults, so why not bring that theme into the classroom to build engagement and excitement? I have ideas for all the center areas in your classroom including art, literacy, math, science, blocks/STEM, sensory, fine motor, and a book list! All you need to do now is grab your lesson plan book and keep reading!
Grab all the printables! Pirate Math & Literacy Centers, Summer STEM Cards, Summer Directed Drawings, Little Learners Shell Science, and the Beach Dramatic Play
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Pirate Activities for Literacy
Letter Match! Grab some shell or pirate-themed paper plates from the dollar store and add in some shell letter manipulatives to give students something new to touch and sort. Don’t forget that if you don’t have a fun manipulative to match your theme, just DIY one!
Pirate Vocabulary! Practice learning new vocabulary and building word knowledge with your students using the pirate vocabulary words included in the unit. They are great on a word wall, with a letter building manipulative, or with stamps and kinetic sand (pictured).
Pirate Read, Build, Write! Use the pirate letters to practice letter identification, letter formation, and handwriting skills! There are uppercase and lowercase letter cards included, so you can meet your students where they are. Make the activity harder by having students use the letter cards to spell sight words or student names.
Pirate Book List! Check out this list of my favorite books about pirates and mermaids! These are kid-tested and approved to be funny, inspiring, and educational.
Pirate Word Wall! Create a fun writing center with pirate word cards, pirate-themed writing paper, sensory bottles, multiple writing utensils, and other printables. Students will love coming to the writing center when it matches the theme and has fun, new items each theme!
Treasure Sight Words! Create a treasure hunt butcher paper activity with a sensory addition to make a one of a kind learning experience! The sensory bin is kinetic sand with letter manipulatives, cut up beaded necklaces, gems, and gold coins with letter stickers on them. The butcher paper piece is a treasure chest with sight words written in it. Students use the letter manipulatives to spell the sight words. Add in tweezers for fine motor skills!
Skeleton Syllables! Feed the skeleton’s syllable coins! Students are going to love dropping the gold coins into the mouths of the skeletons. To make the game that way, cut the mouth out and tape the skeleton to the top of a cup. I taped my skeletons to the side of the cup, and students drop the coins into the cups.
Name Clip & Build! I used letter stickers to put the students’ names on the plates. Then they used letter manipulatives to build it and letter clothespins to spell it. This added even more fine motor work for those little hands! This is a great way for young children to practice fine motor skills while they work on name recognition.
Letter Maps! Print the letter map and letter cards and laminate for durability. Then, grab some magnetic bingo chips and magnet wands for students to use. They draw a letter card and find the letter on the map and place a bingo chip on top. When they have covered all the letters, students can use the magnet wands to clear their boards! There is also a black and white version that students could use a dot marker to complete. Take students on a pirate adventure while they practice literacy skills in your preschool classroom!
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Letter Trace! Draw a coconut tree and add letter pairs all around. I used markers to make the butcher paper activity, and then the students used crayons to trace the letters. I wanted them to use crayons so that the marker would be brighter and stand out more than their work. That way, if a student is just scribbling on the letters, other students can still trace the marker letter. Another way to prolong the life of this activity is to give them letter manipulatives to match on the first day and then let them trace on the second day.
Pirate activities for Math
Shell Sort! Give students a hands-on sorting experience with some shells and a piece of butcher paper! My students loved looking at and feeling all the shells while they sorted. Also, I heard tons of great math and science vocabulary being used while they worked together on the butcher paper activity. These are the hands-on activities that a preschool teacher is looking for during pirate week!
Mermaid 2D Shapes! Practice identifying and creating 2D shapes with these adorable mermaid shape cards! Students pick a card and then build the shape with the manipulatives you have out. Some manipulative ideas are cut-up beaded necklaces, shells, cut-up pipe cleaners, and play dough. The shells represent the vertices, and the pipe cleaners or necklaces represent the sides.
Pirate Flag Count! Create a simple counting game with things you have in your classroom! Use masking tape to create a pirate flag around a pipe cleaner. Write numbers on the flags and gather some pony beads. Students will pick a pirate flag and then lace that many beads onto the pipe cleaner. This is great for fine motor skills, as well as one-to-one correspondence, number recognition, and counting. Definitely add these fun pirate activity ideas to your lesson plans!
Pirate Counting Mats! These counting mats are a versatile math mat since your little pirates can practice number formation, counting, ten frames, one-to-one correspondence, and more! I laminated mine so students could use dry-erase markers for tracing numbers. Then they counted pom poms to match. You could also put the math mats into wipe and write pockets to make them more durable and erasable.
Treasure Roll & Count Light Table! Beforehand, cut out a treasure box from laminated tissue paper and place blue masking tape down for your water (optional). Then, gather your manipulatives, such as gems and coins. Students will roll a die and then count that many manipulatives and place them in their treasure chest. Play continues until it is full. Make this game more complicated by giving students 2 dice and having them practice addition skills. This is a fun way for students to practice number sense during your pirate unit.
Number Walk the Plank! Prep the materials by printing, laminating, and cutting out the number cards. Students pick a number card and then find the number inside the shark’s mouth. They trace the number with a dry-erase marker. Place the number cards in a sensory bin to make it more fun. My sensory bin is pieces of wreath tubing from the dollar store.
Shell Color Sorting Light Table! Use the light table to make a fun color sorting activity. I used the transparent shells for the sorting manipulative. I didn’t have sorting cups for all the colors, so I put masking tape around plastic cups to make some. Then, the students used tongs to grab the shells and sort them by color.
Parrot Positional Words! These adorable positional word cards are great to help students practice direction words and object placement. I made a pirate hat out of linking cubes and then taped a skull to it (included). Then, I made the word cards and the parrot card. Students pick a positional word card and move the parrot around the hat to the correct placement.
Pirate Ship Count! Cut up a pool noodle into slices. Use popsicle sticks and foam to make number flags and stick in the pool noodle pieces. I put mine in a water table so the boats would float around. Students will gather small manipulatives from under the water to place on each boat to match the numbers. If you don’t want to use a water table, that’s totally ok too. Just place this activity in the tray for students to do at a table.
Hook Patterns! Print the pattern cards and tape a pipe cleaner to the back. Next, bend the pipe cleaner like a pirate hook. Students will use pony beads to create the pattern on the pipe cleaner hook. There are AB, ABB, AAB, ABC, AABB, and make your own pattern cards included. I love this activity because students are strengthening their fine motor muscles while working on a math skill.
Sensory & Fine Motor Pirate Activities
Treasure Map Tracing! Print and laminate the treasure map tracing cards so students can use dry-erase markers to practice pre-writing skills. You could also have students use manipulatives to cover the map route.
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Treasure Letters! For this literacy activity, I used a sand colored play dough and different manipulatives. Students picked a letter out of the treasure chest and then used the manipulatives to build the matching letter! Manipulatives ideas: cut up beaded necklaces, gems, and coins.
Pirate Hole Punches! Print the hole punch strips on different colors of paper and set out some hole punches. Then, students just punch holes in the strips to develop fine motor strength. You can tape the strips around their wrists for bracelets, if they want. You can find my favorite hole punches here. Don’t forget to grab the printable pirate activities for an easy way to plan your themes in your pre-k or preschool classroom!
Treasure Sensory Bin! I used kinetic sand in my sensory bin, but regular sand would work too! I added in some cut up beaded necklaces, gems, letter coins, tweezers, and a treasure chest.
Pirate Play Dough Tray! Grab your play dough trays and add in some fun manipulatives with your play dough. I added in some play-dough tools, gems, coins, cut-up beaded necklaces, pirate cupcake flags, pipe cleaners, shells, starfish, a treasure chest, and some nautical silicone trays. When students are done creating, they are responsible for removing all the items from the playdough and returning them to the tray. This is great for their pincer grasp.
Ocean Letter Oobleck! Make a watery blue oobleck! Add small ocean animals and teal, blue, green-colored letter beads. To make the oobleck, mix 2 parts corn starch (ex: 1 cup) and 1 part blue water (ex: 1/2 cup). Then, to make it extra watery, add another part of blue water (ex: 1/2 cup) to make it look like an ocean! To make blue water, I added a few drops of blue food coloring to the water. Lastly, you can add fun mix-ins like blue glitter, ocean animals, and letter beads.
Art activities for a Pirate Theme
Fish Painting! Create a paper plate art activity that allows students to use their background knowledge and do a little research to make a fish. I cut the paper plates and taped the triangle to the back to make the tail. Then, I set out paint and real images of different kinds of fish that live in the ocean. I wanted students to have the opportunity to create their own fish, rather than just copying mine. For the images, I grabbed a calendar from the dollar store and used those, but you could also print images.
Crab Directed Drawing! In the Summer Directed Drawing pack there is a crab, and I thought it was just perfect for a pirate theme. There are step-by-step directions along with ideas for different materials. I used oil pastel and watercolors for this image. While the picture was still wet, I sprinkled some coarse kosher salt on the brown area for sand texture. Write these pirate crafts into your lesson plans today!
Blocks, STEM, Science, And Dramatic Play Activities for Pirates
Pirate & Beach Blocks & STEM Props! In the Summer STEM pack there are I Can Build cards for a pirate theme. I set out ocean animals, shells, boards, and pieces of foam/felt for students to use while they build, too. I also like to have nonfiction books available for my students to look at for inspiration.
Shells Science Table! For week 1, I have students sorting, identifying, and weighing shells. My students spent so much time exploring and learning about the shells and comparing them in a variety of ways.
Shells Science Table! The next week, I had students searching for shells, and they loved it! I set out a box of sand with some brushes and tweezers. The shells were in the sand tray, and they used the tools to search and find different kinds of shells. There is a recording page included, too.
Beach Dramatic Play! Create a beach in the dramatic play area for students to lounge, snack, and pretend at! They have so much fun in this pretend area while developing social skills, early literacy skills, and math skills. Learn all the details to set it up here. Some pirate costumes would make a great addition to this dramatic play setup! Another great option is to let students create their own treasure maps to use in the dramatic play area.
Try these pirate-themed activities and see if your little pirates love it as much as mine did! I also think it would be great for a summer camp or summer school theme, so keep that in mind when you are planning! Don’t forget to grab all the pirate printable activities below!
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I’m Jackie, your go-to girl for early childhood inspiration and research-based curriculum.
