Muppets Treasure Island Learning Experiences

This week is a choose your own pirate adventure! I wrote two blog posts this week- one with pirate activities based on this movie, Muppets Treasure Island, and another using the 1968 movie Blackbeard’s Ghost streaming now on Disney+. If your child is a little older (middle elementary school age and up) you might want to check out that movie with learning experiences here. Or you can always watch them both!

We had a lot of fun with Muppets Treasure Island- great characters, catchy tunes, and an entertaining storyline with a mouse cruise ship subplot. This movie is sure to make you smile and my kids loved it.

Here are the supplies you will need for this week’s activities:

-paper, colored pencils, markers

-fort building materials

-an old sock (for sock puppets) and times for decorating (yarn, googly eyes, buttons)

-a compass (could be an app on your phone)

-Suggested Books: Me On The Map by Joan Sweeney, There’s a Map on My Lap by Dr Seuss, The Zax from The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss

The Hook: What is a Pirate?

Lots of kids know about pirates. My daughters knew that they had long hair, funny hats, and usually an eye patch. But what do pirates do? This is an opportunity to tell your kids that pirates are bad guys (or as my daughter says “villains” because, as she pointed out, “girls can be bad guys, too”) on the sea or ocean. Pirates are robbers. They would steal things from other ships, including stealing the ships themselves. Although this movie, and many others, talk about pirates burying their treasure, that is actually a myth. Pirates spent the money that they stole instead of burying it and no one has actually ever found a pirate’s buried treasure. I learned this from the National Geographic video that I reference below. If you’ve done other learning experiences, then you know that I love maps! This is a great time to bust out a map, globe, or atlas (ones on the computer are fine, but I always prefer the tactile experience to a real one that you can touch) and show the oceans on which they sailed. As one of the videos I will reference later says, piracy began in Greece and there were pirates in the Mediterranean. Blackbeard’s ship was found off the coast of North Carolina in the 1990s (my best friend’s family lives in a small town off the coast in North Carolina and the city is full of Blackbeard tourism and merchandise), so you could also show the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the Caribbean (Pirates of the Caribbean for those who are a fan of the Disney World/Disney Land ride and the movie is also streaming on Disney+. Note: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is rated PG-13 and has some scary elements, so it’s definitely better for older ones).

Now that you have some background information on pirates, let’s watch the movie Muppets Treasure Island!

The Jolly Roger: Make Your Own Pirate Flag

A pirate ship just wouldn’t be a pirate ship without the good ol’ Jolly Roger. It’s the black flag with the white skull and crossbones. Ask your child what their pirate flag would look like if they had a pirate ship. Put out paper, colored pencils, and markers and see what they come up with. One of my daughters created a flag that she called “The Star” and the other one named hers Emma.

What Are The Parts of a Pirate Ship? Build Your Own and Play!

We talked about the parts on the ship that the kids noticed while watching Muppets Treasure Island. If your children can’t remember, you can look at some Google Images of pirate ships and their parts. I found this image (see slide 5) on Pinterest that you can look at to help with labels. We also talked about the terms port (left) and starboard (right). We remembered that port means left because they both have 4 letters. Later, on a bike ride, my kids were yelling to each other to go “port” or “starboard” depending on where they were riding.

This week we went to San Francisco for a day trip and saw a cannon outside of Fort Mason. It tied in perfectly to our pirate theme!

After reviewing the parts of the ship, we decided to make our own! Think of it as building a fort. Whatever supplies you use to build a fort, you could use these to make a ship. We used this great fort-building rods and connectors kit that I got from Lakeshore Learning. We built a tall mast and put a sheet on it to make a sail. Then we taped the girls' Jolly Roger flags to the top. The girls pretended to be “Fruit Pirates”. Our yard has fruit trees, so the girls “sailed” to the different fruit trees, commandeered the fruit, pirate style, and took it back to their ship. What ferocious pirates!

We used outside, but you could really build your “ship” anywhere. You could use a bed, a couch, a bunch of chairs you put together—the sky’s the limit!

What is a Pirate? Youtube Videos to Watch

I found a few fun videos about pirates on Youtube. (As always, make sure to watch Youtube with your children as you never know what ads and videos may auto load.) This first one is done by “A Kid Explains History”. It’s really good, but it does mention hanging, so I want to give you a heads-up. My daughter said “I don’t really understand, he talks really fast”, so afterward we watched this one. My kids liked this one, too. I would just note that it never explains what a pirate is, but the rest of it is good. Lastly, here is a video from National Geographic for older kids. It tells 5 Myths About Pirates That Are Actually True (which technically doesn’t make them myths, but whatever).

A Day In the Life of a Pirate: Write a Journal Entry

This is a great activity to do after watching the pirate YouTube videos. Ask your child to imagine what it would be like to be a pirate on a pirate ship. What would a regular day look like? What job would your child have? What would the pirates eat? Is the work hard or easy? After imagining, have your child write the journal entry.

If you have younger ones, ask them to tell you what the journal entry would say. My four year old said, “Arrrr.  Hello!  Do you want to know about me the pirate?  I play music.  Arrrr!  I am Captain Flower.  I am the music player on the ship.  I play the accordion.  There are 29 people on the ship.  It’s named Captain Curley.”  Even though she can’t actually write (other than her own kind of scribble writing) it’s important for her and other little ones to practice telling stories and sharing their ideas. They are skills they will build upon later.

Make Your Own Muppet

When we watched The Great Muppet Caper we made paper bag puppets. You could always do that with this movie, as well, if you haven’t done that activity yet. Or, like us, you could make sock puppets! Just grab an old sock (you know those ones that you have lying on the dryer, waiting for its friend to show up? Face it- the sock monster ate it. Perfect time to make a muppet!) and some supplies. You could use markers, buttons or googly eyes for eyes, string, anything you’d like to use to make your puppet. After your puppet is done, put on a puppet show! My daughters even made scenery. Looking for an added challenge? Challenge your children to write a puppet show script!

If you have younger ones, ask them to tell you what the journal entry would say. My four year old said, “Arrrr.  Hello!  Do you want to know about me the pirate?  I play music.  Arrrr!  I am Captain Flower.  I am the music player on the ship.  I play the accordion.  There are 29 people on the ship.  It’s named Captain Curley.”  Even though she can’t actually write (other than her own kind of scribble writing) it’s important for her and other little ones to practice telling stories and telling their ideas. It’s skills they will build upon later.

Treasure Hunt! Make Your Own Treasure Map

The theme of this movie is buried treasure. Time for your child to hide some treasure and make a map to lead you to it. X marks the spot! My daughters hid several items for me to find throughout our back yard. They drew a map of our backyard and included different landmarks, making sure they were in their proper places, so that I could use the map to find the hidden treasure. You don't have to have a map of the outside. If you don't have a backyard, you can have your children make maps of a room inside.

What is a compass? Finding North, South, East, and West

This movie provides a great opportunity to talk about cardinal directions. If you have a compass, this is a great opportunity to pull it out. No compass? No problem! You can download a compass on your phone. Use it to find North, South, East, and West. Make labels of each of these directions and put them on the walls of your house. You can play games. Ask your child to go get something from the South side of the house or room. Your child will get a kick out of using terms like “North and South” instead of “over there”. Great books to pair with cardinal directions are The Zax from The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr Seuss and There’s a Map On My Lap by Tish Rabe.

Me on the Map

Looking for more map ideas? Try the book Me On the Map by Joan Sweeney. I used this book as a teaching tool with my second graders every year. It’s a great way for kids to see how they fit into the maps of our world. You can find the book here on Amazon or you can also find a read-aloud on YouTube. Insert view YouTube with your children reminder here!

After reading the story, encourage children to make a map of their bedroom, just like the girl in the story does. Or make a map of your street and the house on it. Introduce the idea of a map key. Have them create a key for their map. Use the compass from the previous activity to label North, South, East, and West on the map.

Scavenger Hunt: Design Your Own

Who doesn’t love a good scavenger hunt? This is an opportunity for your children to create their very own, and it’s an opportunity to write and they don’t even know it! Have them make a list of things that you need to find. They can be as simple as “Find an object that is purple” or “Find an object that makes sound”. Have them write down as many as they can think of. When they are done, they can give it to you or a sibling to find. Want added fun? Have them FaceTime or Zoom a friend or relative and read off the items for the friend or family member to find. It’s a fun activity to do virtually and a great way to connect with someone else during this time of Covid! Or send the scavenger hunt through snail mail! The recipient can check off the items and send it back.

Cooking with Long John- Make Your Own Recipe!

Here’s another great opportunity for writing. Have your children write a recipe for a favorite food. You could do this a few different ways. One way is to just have your child write down what he or she believes to be the directions for cooking something. I can tell you that this can prove to be hilarious! It’s fun to read how children think something is made—the ingredients or how long you have to cook it. Here is an example from my four year old:

The second way is to make a favorite snack together and then write the ingredients and directions as we go along. Some tasty examples include how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, how to make s’mores (which is what we did), or apple smiles (2 apple slices with a nut butter and marshmallows in-between them—it looks like the apples is smiling). You get a writing activity and a tasty snack out of it: win-win! (The S’mores were delicious!) Here is a great, free template from the awesome site Teacherspayteachers.com.

Well, that’s all for this week! I hope you enjoyed Muppets Treasure Island! See you next time!

~Nicole