International Speak Like a Pirate Day

Hello everyone!

Did you know that September 19th is International Speak Like A Pirate Day?

Click here to check out the official site

Well, the pirates in room 156 had a really great day! Over the summer, I purchased a few pirate-y items from Oriental Trading…bandanas, gold earrings, and medallions! The students were so excited to sport their pirate costumes in class for the parents!

We started off with a ‘Pirate Speak’ matching activity. The students worked on this with their parents while we were giving the stragglers a minute or two to arrive. Next, we sang a few pirate-y songs. The first one was Jack Hartmann’s *‘Silly Pirate Song’*. The song is fun because with each verse they add on another set of hand motions. The song is not there in it’s entirety. You’ll have to google the rest of the words to the song. There are two more verses after the video ends. We just kept singing after the video ended, and the kids did a good job. Then we sang, *’The Pirate Song’* by Andy Z. The kids really got into this song because it rhymes and at the end, Andy falls down. They LOVE falling down…so, I usually remind them gently to watch how they fall..today in front of the parents they were GREAT…my kids are so precious, they even FALL cutely! 🙂

Before I forget…I wanted to share a song that we enjoyed but did not sing for the parents. *Portside Pirates* is a super cute story. Lots of repetition and the kids can learn some pirate-y vocabulary like portside and starbord! 🙂

So, after we did the songs, I had the children get out their poetry journals so that we could work on the poem ‘Polly the Pirate’. With each stanza, I modeled for the parents different ways to scaffold the reading for their student. We reviewed several options, depending on their students reading level. If the text is too hard, of course…READ ALOUD is a way to help their listening comprehension. We discussed ECHO READING….which is when they read the sentence and their student repeats it…I also modeled the YOU READ, I READ strategy…where the parent reads one line, and then the student reads the next one. The last way I modeled reading with their student was CHORAL READING…where the parent and student read at the same time. With all the emphasis on common core…there are times that the material they are exposed to will be ablove their reading level. I wanted parents to have options for partnering with their students in a way that was both developmentally appropriate, but also enjoyable practice time for both the parent and student.

Next, I distributed decodables and had the students read the story to their parent and then sort for the short o sound and the long u sound. We talked about how some words may have the same letters, but make different sounds. It was great for the parents to work on helping their students with their phonics skills.

After all that sitting, I thought it would be a great idea to have the students up and moving, so, I had them play quiz-quiz-trade. I talked to the parents about the importance of student engagement and the strategies I’d learned at the Kagan training that I’d just been to. I told them that it would be a bit noisy…but that it was good, because the kids would be talking to one another and reviewing…which was the whole point! 🙂 I explained to them how to properly coach the children with the strategy. The parents seemed to enjoy the activity.

I finished up by reading ‘Pirates Go To School’. We all enjoyed a picnic lunch outside afterwards. Hopefully, soon, we will get areas on our field to sit and eat that are covered. It was BLAZING hot out there…but…that’s Florida for ya! 🙂

It was really cool to have one of my new ‘matey’s do ‘Pirate Day’ with me today! Our media specialist even let us do an announcement about it on the news! 🙂 It was lots and lots of fun! 🙂 Thanks for dressing up and being ‘piratey’ for the day, Daina! 🙂