Stories from the Sea: Pirates resource

Play Pirate Pairs with a selection of our pirate objects.

Play Pirate Partners using words from our collection of pirate objects.

Discover a secret place where pirates buy their wares. Where could it be? How do they get into it?

What do pirates wear on their heads? Make a role-play pirate hat shop.

Talk about what the people are doing in a picture of pirates meeting the Navy, and record dialogue. Activity devised by Helen Horler.

Make a shopping list for a pirate picnic inspired by a story. Activity devised by Helen Horler.

Talk about what adventures the class might have with the pirates on board their ships. Activity devised by Helen Horler.

Have some fun with parrot sayings and alliterative phrases.

Learn about coordinates with a map from the collection of Pirate objects. 

Create and play a simple pirate board game with adventure cards.

Goodies or Baddies? Are all pirates bad? Was Francis Drake an explorer or a pirate?

Design pirate coins and hide pirate treasure for others to find.

Create a pirate ship role-play area ideal for listening to a story.

An early version of the shotgun.

Pirates would wear these while fighting, to protect their hands and make punches more dangerous. 

A piece of women's clothing made from a type of cotton. 'Calico' Jack Rackham was a famous pirate.

This small cannon can turn round on its stand to point in any direction - useful for shooting at pirates boarding your ship!

Iron and stone balls would be fired from a ship's cannons.

The blade can be folded into the handle when the knife is not being used.

A Mariner's Compass. Pirates, like all sailors, needed compasses to show them which way they were going at sea and help them read maps.

This tiny crown was treasure from Tibet.

Spanish 'milled' dollars ('pieces of eight').

For keeping pirates' gunpowder dry - if it got wet they wouldn't be able to fire their guns.

For showing that a ship's crew were pirates, and for scaring other ships into surrendering.

A proper pirate parrot.

Worn by Navy officers in the late 1700s and 1800s.

Coat belonging to a Royal Navy lieutenant.

Telescope specially designed for seeing at night. Pirates used telescopes to spot far-off ships and to look at the stars to help them find their way at sea.

A picture carved onto a whale's tooth. Pirates and sailors made these to keep from getting bored.

A ship flying the Jolly Roger, trying to smuggle its cargo under cover of darkness.

This sword was found buried near a church in Lowestoft. The blade is curved to make it easier to fight with in small spaces like inside a ship.

The infamous pirate Blackbeard - one of the original ‘pirates of the Caribbean’.

Report of the execution of the ‘Flowery Land Pirates’ in 1864.

Captured flag of Chinese pirate Shap Ng Tsai.

One of the 'Barbary pirates’, who were based in North Africa.

Anne Bonny and Mary Read were two female pirates in the 1700s.

Lt Turner was taken prisoner by the Ladrone pirates led by the powerful Chinese woman pirate Ching Shih.

Pirate captain William Kidd burying a treasure chest and assorted loot on Gardiner’s Island, just off New York.