Memories of a kindergarten pirate inquiry: “What did pirates do?”

If we follow a map, will we find treasure? What kinds of treasure? Stories of an inquiry that took us on imaginative pirate adventures - in our classroom and outdoors! Cross-curricular connections to math (geometry, patterning, number sense, data management), language, science, drama, and phys-ed.

Read about our adventures below, including reflections about the value of EXPERIENTIAL learning.

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Memories of a pirate inquiry: “What did pirates do?”

One day, a student made a map at the craft table. “What kind of map?” I asked. “A treasure map!” This got the attention of the other students nearby, and they began talking about pirates and making maps of their own. The next morning, several students brought treasure maps to school that they’d made at home that night. We took the maps outside for outdoor learning time, and decided to take a walk to see what kinds of treasure we might find in our yard. This was the start of a wildly adventurous pirate inquiry!

We filled our book baskets with all the fiction and nonfiction pirate books we could find. Students pored over these books, looking carefully at all the illustrations as they researched to learn what pirates ships were like, the kinds of treasures pirates stole, and the kinds of places pirates travelled to. They drew and labelled pictures of what they learned, and we used that information to design plans and then turn our whole classroom into an imaginative pirate world! The sand table was a beach full of treasures to be found (which led to lots of number sense, data management, geometry, and patterning lessons). The craft table was where we made pirate things like hats, flags, and pet parrots with bright-coloured feathers. The dramatic play area became a pirate ship - “The Emerald Cedar” - where we invented games with cannonballs and sailed to far-away islands. We learned that different pirates had different jobs and wore particular outfits, so we drew pictures of what we learned, and adopted specific pirate roles when we dressed up to play in the Emerald Cedar. There were even girl pirates who tricked the crew and captain by pretending to be boys so they could go on the ships!

Outdoors, we played every day at a big, fallen tree, which we called The Pirate Ship. We had all sorts of imaginative adventures, swimming, exploring islands, and digging in the ground for treasures. We made colourful treasures, too, by mixing food colouring and water, freezing it in little cups outside overnight, and using the coloured ice chunks as jewels and gems to play with after they froze. We also collected sticks to take back inside to make pirate dolls that we could play with. As always, we wrote every day in our journals about our outdoor learning memories.

A highlight of our pirate inquiry was when we went on a REAL treasure hunt. We had made a giant map of the school the day before. We had marked the ‘paces’ after we walked from location to location, counting our steps each time. We left our map in the classroom that night, and the next morning, someone had drawn a red X on it! The students had different theories about who drew the X, so we wrote letters to our grade 8 buddies, the librarian, the custodian, and the principal, asking if they’d drawn the X. They hadn’t! We decided to dress up as pirates and follow the map. The X led us to the office, where we found our vice-principal dressed as a pirate - and she had treasure for us!

Reflections:

Through this inquiry, we realized the fun that can be had by transforming the physical classroom space into an imaginative other world for students. It can inspire them to use their imaginations and more immersively experience the learning. We realized how experiential learning leads to students being able to make meaningful text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections when reading. They might never have made these connections otherwise, without having experienced ‘pirate life’ for themselves. How many times do we as educators expect students to make connections between learning and life, when in many cases they’ve never meaningfully had an experience related to what they were learning about (e.g. going to a farm, going to a city, travelling in an airplane, eating at a restaurant, etc.)? This inquiry pulled my program more into the realm of experiential learning.