Pirate Adventure

(Open ended play)

Let’s have an adventures on the high seas with pirate hat, an eye patch, and a telescope!

We’re a big fan of making pretended play items from recycled materials. My daughter is really into anything pirate at the moment, so even after a pirates theme day a few days ago, we made these items to bring outside on these lovely summer days and let her imagination fly even further.

What you’ll need:

-cardstock (we re-used a large size shopping bags)

-paints (black and yellow, we used our homemade flour, water and food coloring paints) and brush

-pencil, ruler and scissor

-glue

-rubber/elastic band

-newspaper and tape

How to:

-draw a pirate hat on the cardstock

-cut the hat out

-yellow trim around the hat and paint both pieces black on both sides. Leave to dry.

-mark the radius of the hat with the extra cm on the inner side of one part and glue both parts together. Leave to dry overnight.

-add holes on the eye patch, thread the rubber bands through on each side and knot it in place

-roll 3 different sizes of newspaper pages and tape on top of another to form a telescope

We first drew a pirate hat on the cardstock like this: measure our child’s head (for instance 52 cm) and divide by two then add 1-2 cm and mark that length (28 cm). We added 15 cm to each side and that is the length of the hat (58 cm). The sides of the hat are 8 cm high and a bit at an angle. From there you just need to draw the top of the hat – I started with the bulged part at about 10 cm from each end and it is 21 cm high at it’s peak.

Cut the hat out with a scissor. Do a copy of the hat by outlining the first piece and cut this one too.

Paint yellow trim around the hat

It was rather challenging for Y since the yellow trim area was rather thin. She painted the table quite much.

One hat done with its yellow trim, next is the other side of the hat.

Both trim was done and it’s time to paint both pieces black on both sides

She had more fun with painting this black area

She could experiment more on ways to paint since the area was bigger.

One hat was done with paint, one more to go.

Both hats was painted and needed to be left to dry.

Then draw something pirate-like on white paper or cardstock. Finally glue the white pirate-like symbol to the hat after the paint dried. When everything is dry mark the radius of the hat with the extra cm on the inner side of one part again and glue both parts together. Use the clothes pins so everything stays in place and sticks together better! If you’re not confident enough in your glue you can also use the stapler.

Wait until it dries completely (I recommend over night) and gently pull the middle part apart then go around with your both hands to make it round and softer

All done! Now the pirate needs the eye patch as well!

After we cut the eye patch, we added two holes on its sides.

We threaded the elastic through on each side and knot it in place.

She had a great time painting the pirate hat, but waiting game has never been easy for her. To luck she was distracted with the telescope, we spent the whole afternoon playing it. She used the telescope to look for me, despite knowing where I was exactly. She would look to left, up, down, right as if I was a treasure that was hard to find. Then once she saw me through the telescope, she’d abruptly stop, say “Mummy! There you are!” and soon followed by super excited laughter and giggles. She’d then give me the “scope-o” (read: telescope) and it’s my turn. This game was on repeat the whole afternoon until she was tired enough to slowly drift to nap.

We had to wait for the glue to dry overnight, so the outdoor adventure had to wait til tomorrow morning.

#pirate #pretend #play #diy