Blue Sky Days Blog: Summer Homeschooling

At the Pirates' House in Savannah, Georgia

PIRATE WEEK -

Ahoy, me mateys!

The kids' pirate names for the week:

Anna - Ella "Thieving Magpie" Knuckles
Chayton - Nelson "Saggin' Jowls" Flint

You can check out this pirate name generator to find yours!

Talk Like A Pirate: Pirate Phrases

Monday: Yo ho! Yo ho! A Pirate's Life for Me!

What is a pirate? A person who attacks and robs ships at sea. They were criminals who did what they wanted and took what they wanted when they wanted it.
What is a privateer? Pirate holding a government commission/contract that had an armed ship which was authorized for use in war, especially in the capture of enemy merchant shipping.
Learn about famous pirates:

Edward Teach (better known as Blackbeard) - was the most feared pirate. Most ships would give up the moment they saw his flag. He was known to barrel into battle with a sword in each hand and knives and pistols at the ready. He used to weave hemp into his beard and set it on fire as a scare tactic. He had 4 ships and over 300 in his pirate army. He captured over 40 merchant ships in the Caribbean, and he defeated the famous warship, the HMS Scarborough in sea battle. After a fierce battle, the Royal Navy was finally able to overtake him, and they beheaded him. They put his head on a steak in Williamsburg, Virginia, overlooking the Hampton River, as a warning to other pirates of what their fates would be. His ship, the Queen Mary's Revenge, sunk off the coast of Buford, South Carolina, and you can still scuba dive to see it today.
Sir Francis Drake - was probably the most celebrated privateer of his time. He worked for Queen Elizabeth. He sacked the Spanish Army many times off the coast of Florida at her command. He sailed to North America and claimed new land on the Pacific Coast, which made him the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. He even rescued the unsuccessful colonists off Roanoke Island, North Carolina and gave them passage back to England on his boat.
Anne Bonny (yes, they had female pirates too!) - sailed to the New World (Jamaica) with her family and fell in love with a poor sailor named James Bonny. However, when she become disappointed in his valor, she started seeking out the company of other men in Nassau. Among these men were "Calico Jack" Rackham, the captain of a pirate ship. She joined his crew, acted and dressed like a man, and fought profusely. Though she fought under Rackman's command, she also coaxed the crew into even more bloodshed and violence, making her a pretty formidable pirate herself. Unfortunately, she was captured along with the rest of Rackham's crew and sentenced to death. She and another female pirate named Mary Reed claimed pregnancy while in prison, so they did not go through with the sentence.

Make your own pirate WANTED Poster. Tell us about what makes you unique from other pirates. This could be physical or personality.

Tuesday: Sail with the Best Sailors on the Sea

How do ships float? They float because of buoyancy.

Test buoyancy on different objects and document the buoyancy. Do they line up with what you learned about buoyancy?

How do pirate ships sail? The physics of sailing depend on the direction of the wind. It's easy to understand if you're sailing downwind, as the wind fills the sails and pushes the boat forward on the water. The sails on the pirate ship work like the wings on an airplane - both create aerodynamic lift to move an object

To sail, you need to know the direction of the wind. To do this, you can wet your finger and hold it up in the air. The side that dries the fastest and feels the coldest is the direction the wind is coming from. You can also watch the water to see what direction the ripples are moving.

Sailing the Interceptor to the Caribbean - POC Bloopers
Orientation On A Boat - Draw on the driveway with chalk
Parts of the Pirate Ship, Pirate Ships Explained
Learn about the different kids of pirate ships. Which one would you choose?

Design your own ship and label the parts of it
Design your own pirate flag for the ship you chose and draw it flying at the top of your ship
Pirate Ship Coloring Pages: Pirate Ship Coloring Sheet and Ship In A Bottle Coloring Sheet

How to tie different kinds of sailing knots

All pirates had jobs on the ship: Some manned the sails, some manned the "Crows Nest," and some cooked the food. One of the most important jobs was keeping the ship clean. With so many sailors living aboard for months at a time, this was the only way to keep everyone from getting sick and (potentially) dying. You need a crew to sail!

You could use this as a chance to get the kids doing chores and scrubbing the floor by making them scrub the "Poop Deck!"

Wednesday: Navigation through the Sea

How did the early sailors navigate the oceans?
Other ways you can navigate: The direction the sun rises (East) and sets (West); birds with short flight patterns, certain types of fish, and certain types of vegetation floating in the water can show proximity to shore
Compasses are probably one of the most important instruments used in sailing. Compasses tell you what direction is North based on the polarity of the Earth, so you can always make sure you're heading in the right direction
Astrolabe (handheld telescope) - enabled seamen to use the North Star and sun to navigate by measuring their altitude above the line of the horizon

Draw what you can see through your astrolabe

Dead Reckoning (finding your exact point on the globe, draw a circle of 0-90-180-270 to show the globe): to find this, you will need the direction of your heading, the speed of ship, the speed of the ocean currents, the leeward (or downward drift of the ship), and the time spent on each heading. Before reliable clocks, they used sandglasses. To get the speed of the ship, the glass was used with a "log" or a piece of wood attached to a line knotted at uniform intervals - the sailor heaved the log from the stern of the ship and let the line play out as the ship pulled away; when the sailor felt the first knot pass through his fingers, he shouted a signal to another sailor who turned a one-minute glass (60 seconds); the first sailor counted the number of knots that passed until the sand ran out. A timer of one minute, knots spaced one-sixtieth of a nautical mile apart, and simple arithmetic easily gave the speed of the ship in nautical miles per hours (or knots)
Map-Making - pirates were essential in creating the globe as it is today. In their time, they spread knowledge of the world and helped create maps by sketching coastlines as they came across them and visited them

Early map of the world (as you can see, they thought America looked like a "v," and they had no idea there was land in between the East and West Coast
Label the continents on a blank map of the world. Blackbeard was said to have 14 wives. If he had the same number of wives on all the continents, how many would he have in total? (Answer: 98 wives)
Walk or drive around your neighborhood and map it out as best you can

Pirates are also one of main reasons we have so many tales of ocean creatures and monsters: Pirate Lore
Media: Watch Sinbad

Thursday: Blimey! It's Sea Shanties, Hardtack, and Gruel!

Listen to Pirate Songs - what would you put in your own pirate song?
What did pirates eat?

Fresh water didn't last long on a ship (and salt water actually dehydrates you), so they mostly drank Rum (Why is the Rum always gone?)
Hardtack Sea Biscuits - simple type of biscuit made from flour, water, and sometimes salt (inexpensive and could keep for up to 12 months)
Salmagundi - "salad" made from whatever was available, i.e. chopped meat/fish, onions, grapes, cabbage, salt/pepper, garlic, oil, vinegar, pickled vegetables and meat
Salted Meat / Bacon (when available)
Pickled vegetables
Black bean hash
Grease grits
Gruel/Slop - thin liquid meal of oatmeal or other meal boiled in water
Cackle Fruit - eggs
Doughboy - boiled or deep fried dumpling

Health: They didn't see doctors, brush their teeth, or take baths on a regular basis, so they probably didn't smell very good!

Scurvy was a very common disease among pirates - a deficiency in Vitamin C characterized by swollen, bleeding gums and the opening of previously healed wounds. If left untreated, you could die from infection and bleeding. Make sure you drink your orange juice, kids!

Pirates may not have followed the laws of the government, but they did have a Pirate Code, or a code of conduct everyone on the ship had to follow. One of their rules was no fighting. If a pirate disobeyed this rule, they would be marooned or shot.
If Anna and Chayton fought with each other, your captain might make you walk the plank and maroon you. You would then have to swim to the closest island or be eaten by sharks. You could also be stranded if you were the captain and your crew committed mutiny and took over your ship, or you could be stranded if your ship sank during sea battle with an enemy ship. What if you were stranded on a desert island? How did you get there? Who are you with? What is the weather like/what animals live there/what do you eat while you're there? What are your adventures/challenges/triumphs?
Walk the Plank Exercise - you can suspend a 2x4 above the ground outside with bricks, pieces of wood, etc. and see if the kiddos can balance there way across without falling off into the "sharks" and "sea monsters" below

Friday: Hidden Treasure

Why do you think pirates hid their treasure? Well, just like we put our paychecks in the bank in case our person or our house gets robbed (to protect it), many pirates didn't have "houses," as they were normally nomad sailors, so they had to have a safe place to stash their valuables. They couldn't keep it on the ship because the ship could be overtaken by the Navy (as they were criminals) or other pirates (like Blackbeard), or it could sink in a storm and their treasure would be lost
Islands like Madagascar were considered Pirate Hideaways, and they also spent a lot of time at Port Royal, Nassau, and Tortuga in the Caribbean
Have a Riddle Scavenger Hunt around town to lead you to gold doubloons
Design your own treasure chest, and then hide each others, and create a map to lead the other to it