The New England Pirate Museum

Pre Visit Activities

SUGGESTED PRE-VISIT ACTIVITIES

Elementary School

Have the students do a WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT PIRATES activity:
- OPTION A - Individual, small group, and whole class activity
  1. Students will freewrite what they know about pirates for ten minutes without interruption.
  2. Teacher will divide class into groups of four or five students and ask each group to choose a recorder. Students will share what they wrote, and the group will decide what information should be recorded.
  3. Teacher will lead whole class discussion. Recorders will report their groups' information as the teacher lists it on chart paper. (Save list for post-visit activities.)
- OPTION B - Teacher led whole class activity. Teacher lists on chart paper what students think they know about pirates. (Save list for post-visit activity.)
Read and discuss Gail Gibbon's Pirates: Robbers of the High Seas. (Little, Brown, 1993)

Introduce and discuss the following vocabulary:


	pirate		Captain Kidd	cargo		Whydah

	row		privateer	merchant ship	booty

	pieces of eight	rigging		buccaneer	vessel

	bounty		cutlass		crow's nest	mariner

	galleon		loot		mutiny		compass

	Blackbeard	port		plunder		maroon

	Jolly Roger



		(See enclosed "Vocabulary Hunt" worksheet)

On a world map locate North and South America, Nova Scotia, Caribbean Sea, West Indies, England, and New England.
On a United States map locate North and South Carolina, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
On a map of Massachusetts locate Cape Cod, Boston, Lynn, Marblehead, Salem, Gloucester, and Newburyport.
If a map of New England is available locate Portsmouth, N.H. and the Isles of Shoals; Newport, R.I. and Block Island; and Penobscot, Maine.

Middle School

Have the students investigate the lives and times of pirates of New England (A list of brief biographies is included in this package) and take careful notes on the museum presentation in order to do the Time-Line post-activity.
Have the students do the enclosed world and New England maps. (A post activity will require each student to identify two locations on each map making specific pirate-related comments about each.)
Require the students to do the vocabulary and dictionary activities contained in this packet.
Advise the students that they will need to do thorough preparation and take careful notes on the museum presentation in order to do the post visit activities.

High School

Review with the students the enclosed material on Piracy - "Historical Perspective"
Have the students investigate the life of one of New England's Pirates or their victims and present that information to the class. (A list of brief biographies is enclosed)
Have the students complete maps relating to some centers of pirate activities - outline maps and a list of places to locate are enclosed.
Like everyone else, pirates had to live by rules. Working in groups, have the students develop a set of rules that they think a band of pirates might have followed. During their visit to the museum, they will learn more about "Articles of Agreement". (There is an activity sheet entitled "Articles of Agreement" contained in this packet .)
Have students investigate life aboard a pirate ship: find information on the daily routine of the crew; the chain of command aboard; how booty would be divided; what punishments would be administered if "rules" were broken; how a pirate ship would attack and overtake a "prize", etc.
Organize the students into teams and prepare each team to complete the "Pirate Plaque Attack" and "Who Am I" activities while they are taking the museum tour.