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Pirate Family Literacy Night

Arrr you ready for Pirate Family Literacy Night? 
 
Ha! I crack myself up. Every year we host our families for a fun night of reading and writing activities in a theme. 
 
Pirates is a fun theme with tons of possibilities.
 
I mean, think about it. There are hook hands and peglegs and  ships with huge sails. 
 
There are treasure maps and jewels and deserted islands.
 
You can say Arrrrr! a lot, and wear scarves and hats. What’s not to like?
 
So how do you put together a family literacy night, a la pirate?
 
Well, here you go!
 
About a month before Literacy Night, I start the planning. I figure out what stations I’m going to have, what materials I need to make and copy. 
 
I also find out who will be able to help out at a station or at the front of the school. 
 

Event planning form from my Instructional Coaching MegaPack

I cut, stack, and laminate (or I have the lovely volunteers at our school help with it.)
 
About a week before Literacy Night, I start putting samples and materials together. I go shopping and buy everything we need. I put together the bags for the door (including a bookmark and a reading pledge). I talk to our librarian to make sure we’re ready with the free books we give away – one to each child. And I put together the snack station. 
 
This year’s snack was this adorable craft:
 

 
To make it, I stuffed plastic snack-sized bags with a popsicle stick (for spreading frosting), a mini chocolate doughnut, a pretzel stick, and a handful of goldfish. I also cut up little pieces of white paper for the sail and purchased the little paper plates and frosting.
 

I downloaded How I Became a Pirate to play in the background while the kids were working on their snack.

At the front door, our librarian handed out books to our kids!

This was the Treasure Map station: a fun word family game. Kids made the pieces by cutting them out of yardstick and then put them in a paper bag. The kids and parents took turns drawing cards to fill up their treasure maps!

Kids and parents read these fun pirate partner plays with their hats and hooks on!

This was our reading station: Pirate Cove. We set up comfy chairs and spots to sit and read and provided baskets of books. Our super art teacher made this ship, too!

This station was a huge hit: Digging for Buried Treasure. I took two plastic wading pools and had some helpers fill them with balled-up butcher paper in yellow and brown (to represent sand).

Then I copied these gems and coins on cardstock and mixed them up in the paper balls.

Teachers read a card  with a prefix (at the big kids station) or a rhyming word (at the little kids station) and kids dug through the pools to find the matching words!

At the last station, kids wrote adorable stories about how they became pirates and then they made a paper plate pirate!

 

 

Want to learn more? Check out my How to Plan an Awesome Family Night video!
 

 
Looking for fun pirate ideas? Check out my Pirate Theme Pinterest Board full of pirate inspiration. 
 
You can get everything you need to run your own fun pirate family night at TPT! And now it’s available in English and in Spanish!
 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pirate-Family-Literacy-Night-in-English-and-Spanish-The-Editable-Bundle-4293685?aref=dgxdu5r7

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