Pirates Pack

The Wild Literacy Pirates Pack has 15 unique sessions aimed at children aged 7 - 14, adaptable for a range of abilities. Wild Literacy topic packs provide a variety of fun, creative sessions designed for teachers and parents to support children in literacy development.

Each Wild Literacy pack is a careful curation of sessions that build on and complement each other. Together, the pack covers multiple skills through a variety of activities and different approaches. This means they are not repetitive or boring and they work well for different learners. Topics are explored in lots of interesting ways and sessions provide a host of ideas and various ways to take the learning in any direction a child may be interested in exploring.

The Pirates Pack contains:

1. Pirate Flags

This session helps children think about character traits, telling a story and creating an effect. Making pirate flags as visual representations of these things is a fun and creative way to develop these important creative writing tools. The activities will also help children think about figurative language.

2. Pirate Ship

A practical art and design activity to build or draw a pirate ship. Children use research skills to plan their ship and choose from the writing options to use their ship for an advert or descriptive writing. They could also write a story with the ship as a setting. The practical nature of the session takes the pressure off writing and helps children who find practical activities easier than written activities to approach this literacy task with more confidence.

3. Pirate Quiz

This session is focused on creating a quiz. Having this clear reason for writing helps motivation and engages reluctant writers. Producing the quiz incorporates fact-finding, recording evidence and making the information into questions. You can make writing as big or small a part of the session as you judge: children can write out all the information and questions, they can type it, or you can scribe any or all of it.

4. Treasure Map Story

Writing and planning a story can be daunting. This session involves making a treasure map and then using it as an outline for a story. The map provides settings, a way to plot the story and prompts for key events. There is flexibility to vary the amount of writing depending on the children you are working with. They can just talk about their story, write a few lines, or write multiple pages.

5. Pirate Parrots

This session begins with an art project which is then used to help create a description and/or parrot character. If children would rather not do the art, there is a gallery of parrot photos and artwork to look at and describe. There are a variety of skills you can incorporate into this session such as fact-finding and recording of information, different description tools, character development, dialogue, and story writing.

6. Real Pirates & Smugglers

Stories of real-life pirates abound and have long captured people’s imaginations. This session gives children the experience of finding out about real people and events in order to inspire creative writing. Children can go with their interests which helps them be more motivated to do the creative writing part, and with so many great characters to read about they won’t be stuck for ideas!

7. Pirate Food And Drink

The main focus of this session is making a fun drink. The writing comes as a way to record the recipe and through follow-on fun activities like writing an advert to sell their invention. This is a literacy lesson that doesn’t feel like one! Children will develop their confidence in writing as part of a bigger, more practical and fun task.

8. Desert Islands

Desert islands have long been a source of fascination and have provided great inspiration for stories and characters. Children can engage in the session through various activities including research, art, and survival skills, leading on to a choice of creative writing options. The research and practical activities help engage children in the session and build up to doing some creative writing. This can be very basic or there are options to do more advanced description. There is a lot of flexibility and plenty of ideas to tailor the session to suit the children you are working with.

Pirate Poetry section

9. Pirate Acrostic Poems

Acrostic poems are a really accessible style of poem that all children can find a way to succeed in. They can be kept very simple with just one word for each line, or made longer and more challenging with bringing in rhyming, rhythm and more meaning.

10. Pirate Shape Poems

Shape poems are a great way for children with a wide range of abilities to create a completed piece. There is no pressure to rhyme and the challenge of getting the words to fit the shape can help take some of the focus off writing. The poems can be short and there’s a clear format to follow with a good amount of artistic licence. It’s a great way to use some of their pirate knowledge and descriptions.

11. Pirate Kennings Poems

Kennings poems are really flexible for use with a wide-range of confidence and abilities. They are a great choice for children who aren’t confident at writing poems as they can be straightforward to understand and put together. The simple structure of kennings poems and the possibility for being short and not-too-wordy makes them ideal for those who find writing difficult. For children who want a challenge, kennings provide wonderful ways to think more deeply and creatively about words and description and can make for some really interesting metaphorical writing.

12. Nonsense Pirate Poems

The wonderful thing about nonsense poems is they are great fun and use lots of imagination. They usually contain made up words which helps with the challenge of getting the rhythm and rhyme. This type of poem offers a lot of fun and freedom, which helps even the most reluctant poet to have a go.

13. Pirate Songs And Shanties

This session looks mostly at sea shanties. These fun and catchy tunes are very popular and will help children engage in poetry. There is a very clear guide children can follow to create their own sea shanty, as well as other options to choose from. Completing this activity will help children’s skills in rhythm and tempo.

14. Pirate Free Verse

Most modern poetry is free verse so it’s a great style of poetry for children to learn about and engage with. Free verse – as the name suggests – isn’t constrained by any rules of rhyme or metre. This allows for great freedom of artistic expression. With such a wide scope for how to write however, it can sometimes feel more daunting than having a structure to work within, and so children who don’t have the confidence to come up with and develop ideas may need quite a bit of support and encouragement to get going.

15. Pirate Sonnets

It’s really useful for children to understand sonnets if they are going on to study English Literature at GCSE level. It’s also a quite straightforward structure that they can get the hang of and write their own. They provide a good challenge for rhyming and rhythm. I would recommend sonnets for children who have already built up a little confidence and experience in poetry. In this session you can aim for just four lines and not worry about iambic pentameter. For children who are ready for more of a challenge, you can extend the activity to write a full sonnet with iambic pentameter.