If you haven’t noticed by now, I freakin’ LOVE using crafts in my speech therapy sessions!  So guess what?  The pirate themed week was no different!  I actually had two crafts I could switch between, depending on the goals of my clients.

Paper Plate Pirate Craft for Speech Therapy

I used this one for my little ones mostly.  It was easy to work on requesting and increased MLU with this craft.  Here’s what you need:  each child needs 1 large paper plate, 1 wiggly eye, 1 sheet of black construction paper, 1 sheet of red construction paper.  Since my clients are all smaller, I cut out everything for them.  The beard and eye patch were cut from the black paper.  A head scarf was cut from the red paper.  The kids can decorate the head scarf if they choose.  My clients did  not and I think the craft turned out just fine.  You can also have the kids color the paper plate a skin tone or leave it alone.  We did not color ours.

Now to start assembling!  I gave choices between 2 pieces (like the scarf and the eye) for some of my younger clients.  Then using the phrase, “I want…” they had to make a request.  We drew a nose on at the end and TA DA!  One cute pirate!

Paper Bag Pirate for Speech Therapy

This craft I paired with “The Old Pirate Who Swallowed a Fish.”  The kids loved it.  I loved that my older kids questioned the book on each page.  “How did he fit the plank down his throat?  Where did he put the ship?” were just some of the questions.  (Because the old lady swallowing Santa’s sleigh is apparently completely normal!  No one ever questions the old lady!)  I made some small cards that go along with the story.  You can find them in my resource library for FREE!  The kids could color them or leave them black and white.  For my artic clients, I wrote their target words on the back of each picture.  The child had to produce the target word correctly 5x before “feeding” it to the pirate.

How To Make the Pirate

Cut out materials like you did above for the paper plate craft…just make them slightly smaller.  I did not make this a puppet so you glue the hat/headscarf at the top of the bag.  The child should be able to place cards in the bag through the top.  I prefer this way instead of cutting out a mouth in the middle of the bag.  My kids will tear their bags too easily!  Glue the beard, eye patch and wiggle eye onto the front of the bag too.  Draw the nose on with a marker.

OPTIONAL IDEA:  Make the paper plate pirate above as directed.  Make the beard big enough to glue all the story picture cards on to it!

What are some of your favorite pirate activities?!  I’d love to hear them!

Needing some additional pirate themed activities?

Check out this blog post or my TpT store for a speech and language companion to “Pop Up Pirate!”