Captain Crabclaw's Crew Lapbook - Part 2

Today we made our own aged treasure maps, firstly by scrunching paper, then coating it with a used teabag, allowing to dry and then finishing off with the map drawing itself. Whilst the maps were drying we looked on the internet at various treasure maps and discussed the symbols used.

We made pencil flags, such a simple little print, colour and stick activity but the kids love their new pirate pencils. We found this activity here. B7 then proceeded to tackle a few mazes, spot the difference, a counting in 5's maze and a joke decoder, which he enjoyed.

B7's finished Treasure Map


K4's finished Treasure Map

We made a start on the Alphabet Treasure Hunt activity that was in the activity booklet the kids received at the book launch. They had to hunt for words/images from the story to go along with each letter of the alphabet. This will no doubt take a couple more read throughs to get it completed. We began with them listening for appropriate beginning sounds and then tried having them say stop whenever they felt like it and telling me the letter sound of what they stopped on. A simple activity for B7 but quite a challenge for K4 so that was somewhere in the middle there.

We also spent some time coming up with their own funny animal crews for their pirate ships. I won't share any more details on that just yet as I plan on building on that activity a little.

Captain Crabclaw's Crew Lapbook - Part 1

Yesterday we had the opportunity to attend a book launch at our library. It was for the new book Captain Crabclaw's Crew, by Frances Watt and David Legge. The authors themselves did a live 'performance' of the story for a very large group of children. The launch was put on in conjunction with The Little Big Book Club.

Sorry for the photo glare, it's nearly dark here. I'll try to remember to take another shot during the day.

The kids received an Activity Book each, put out by The Little Big Book Club. So we decided to make the most of it today and began work on a Captain Crabclaw's Crew Lapbook.

We began by reading the story yet again! Whilst I read B7 and K4 drew images from the story. They then painted with watercolours and this has become the cover page of their lapbooks.

B7 sketching.


B7 painting, his attention to detail is developing nicely.

B7's finished lapbook cover.

K4 sketching whilst I read.

K4 finishing off with some water colour.

Her finished lapbook cover.

We then made pirate hats and patches and played pirates for a while.

B7 made a start on a word search that was included in the activity book.

We brainstormed a list of Pirate Words.

These will be made into a Pirate Word Bank to go into our Writing Center for future use.

After brainstorming our list of words we decided to write a. "If I Was A Pirate" story.

We made glittery pirate hat shape book covers.

And completed the pages of the shape books.

B7's story reads as follows:

If I was a pirate I would sail the seven seas.

If I was a pirate I would drink beer with my crew.

If I was a pirate I would look for treasure on an island.

If I was a pirate I would buy lots of Lego with my treasure.

The End.

K4's Story reads,

If I was a pirate I would wear my eye patch and my pirate hat.

If I was a pirate I would go looking for treasure. I would look down in a hole on the beach.

If I was a pirate I would drink lemonade and eat cucumber and ham sandwiches.

If I was a pirate I would go to bed on my ship to have a sleep.

If I was a pirate I would play with my pirate fairy toys.

The End.

We'll keep going with some pirate related activities next week.

In the meantime, check out these sites for pirate stuff:

First School - Pirates

Scholastic - Pirate Activities