We made our LEGO Pirate Ship in the days leading up to our stay in a Pirate room at LEGOLAND Windsor. It was an adaptation of RedTedArt’s Pirate boat. We made it smaller than the original because we didn’t have big enough pieces of card, and I also believed it would make it a much nicer size for our LEGO Minifigures.
Inspiration to Why We Made it
This followed on from a lesson in measuring where The Sensory Seeker made a life-sized Skeleton of himself. My older son (aged 7) had decided to skip this session, although had attended the original measuring one. I thought it would be good for him to see how maths and measuring could be of use to him in his everyday life.
Making a LEGO Pirate Ship
First I printed off the instructions from Maggy’s site. I asked my son what did we need to do to halve the measurements, and he told me that we would divide it by 2. I was really impressed as he set to work in dividing all the measurements – not even being phased by decimals.
Next he measured out and drew onto the card the pieces he would need. When the pieces were all drawn they were cut out. I learned a valuable lesson in reading all the instructions properly, but nevertheless we put the ship together ok. After that we secured it all with magic tape. It was only then we realised that we hadn’t cut out any holes first!
Then he had great fun finding exactly the right stick in the garden for the mast. In fact the one he found had a bump in it that we decided that later on we will make a nest for the ship too.
Afterwards we set to work covering it in paper mache – on the inside and out to secure it. Once the paper had dried we painted it blue. But this did not look right and so we painted over it black. In retrospect I think this gave it a good effect where the blue pokes under the black.
Finally we added our Pirate LEGO Minifigures and found some Pirate stickers and gold coins to put on/in the ship.
Other Pirate Activities and Ideas
What I love about the internet is that you can take whatever interest your child has at the current moment and find some wonderful things related to it by just doing a quick search. There’s some amazing crafts for kids.
Take our interest in Pirates, for example. Originally we did a few pirate things due to the Pirates and Princesses parties the boys were invited to – such as making our own Pirate Cutlass out of newspaper. Then we made a Pirate handprint when teaching my year 2 (then a pre-schooler) the alphabet. Then we played the game The Pirate Captain Says and went on a Pirate Treasure Hunt.
For more Pirate ideas see my Pirate Pinterest Board