I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays. It has been nice to sit around the house and watch the Olympics (while trying to keep Siena out of trouble!). I am sure many of you have plans for this winter break but if you don’t you may be going a little stir crazy. Soooo, for the next 14 days, I thought I would create a series of adventures for you and your children to do together. I call it the “14 Days of Adventure”.

Each day, I will put something new on the blog that you can do with your children and family. The activities will include games, crafts, outdoor adventures, etc. that will get your child out from in front of the tv and actively using their brains. So, here we go with . . .

Day 1: Create Your Own Pirate Adventure

Pirates are always fun (except for the Pirates who don’t do anything. They’re a little lazy!). So, for today’s adventure, make your own pirate ship with a milk carton and some construction paper. Here are the instructions.

Materials:

• 2 milk cartons
• 2 straws
• playdough
• yellow, black and white construction paper
• glue, scissors and tape

Tape a piece of construction paper about 1/2 way up the milk carton as shown in the photo to the right. Tape black construction paper all the way up the back of the milk carton, leaving about 1 inch sticking up over the carton
Tape white construction paper over the rest of the milk carton
Glue two blobs of playdough into the center of the pirate ship
Cut a two to three inch piece off the bottom of the second milk carton. Tape it onto the ship (covering the playdough) Poke two holes in it (with a pencil) right above the playdough blobs Cover with white construction paper
Stick two straws through the holes you poked in the top carton Cut two large rectangles and two small rectangles from yellow construction paper Poke two holes in each rectangle with scissors or a hole punch and thread onto the straws as masts Draw windows and a door with markers Cut yellow circles and glue them to the side of the ship as portholes

Use the Treasure Map Maker Link on the left side to make your own treasure map.

Of course, ye’ll be needing a fine pirate name fer yerself and fer yer ship, matey. Write your pirate ship name on your ship.

Pirate Name Generator

Make up an adventure and write it down in your “Ships Log” or write about your pirate adventures here on the blog by clicking on comments and writing your story!

Then watch this video below by a family who created their own pirate adventure using their video camera. They used stop motion to make it. You can make your own stop motion video by getting lego and other things with your pirate ship. Just take your video camera, get your scene ready, then press record for 1 or 2 secs. Stop the video camera and change something small in your scene. Then repeat.