A couple of weeks back I had to help Jason with his “take-away” homework, which consisted of pirate related project work divided into three parts. He’d already done the first task, making a flag, so I had to help him make pirate money and help him write a story about his pirate, Captain Fork Beard!
The money making went quite well. We discussed the different values of pirate money, with doubloons being the most valuable. Unfortunately we couldn’t get gold foil to make gold doubloons, so we had to settle for silver coins and yellow card for the pieces of eight.
I had got Jason his own pair of scissors and he really enjoyed cutting up the card to make his coins, so to add to them he cut out some octagons to represent gems of different colours as well.
Elisha was a big help and pencilled a little skull onto each side of the coins for Jason to go over with a silver pen.
When the money was made it was time to come up with his pirate story – these are the notes I took:
Q: What is your pirate called?
A: Captain Fork BeardQ: What does he look like?
A: His hair and beard are brown. He wears a hat. He has one wooden leg and one real leg. He has a gun, a curved sword and a grappling hook.Q: Is he a scary, happy or a silly pirate?
A: He is a scary pirate, but he is fair to his crew.Captain Fork Beard is a good pirate who sails the seven seas in his ship, The Scary Roger. His enemy is Captain Force Beard. When Captain Force Beard attacks, Captain Fork Beard has to defend The Scary Roger from the enemy pirates with his curvy sword. Captain Fork Beard uses his grappling hook to grab onto the mast of his ship and swing high up into the air so that Captain Force Beard can’t get him. Captain Force Beard gives up when he can’t catch Captain Fork Beard and will go back to his own ship, saying “I’ll get you next time!”
Captain Fork Beard and his rowdy crew will sail in The Scary Roger exploring for treasure. When they find treasure, the captain will share it with his crew. He keeps his own share in his booty bag. The captain and the crew will sail to a port to celebrate, spending their doubloons on beer and rum.
He’s got some imagination, I’ll give him that! He got the grappling hook idea from us playing Little Big Planet 2 together and his favourite levels feature grappling hooks.
When I spoke to his teacher a few days later she said she thought his pirate money and story were really good and she was pleased with his imagination and enthusiasm for it. Result! 🙂
