Playing Pirate

One of Ryan's current favorite shows is "Jake and the Neverland Pirates." Similar to "Wild Kratts," he has to get up and sing the whole opening theme song with actions. My favorite part is when each character is introduced and Ryan says "Ahoy!" in their "voice."  He also assigns characters to all of us. He, of course, is Jake, I am Izzy, Daddy is Cubby, and Cohen is Skully (the parrot).

On Saturday morning, fresh off the rocket ship, Ryan decided we should search through the basement for things to make a pirate ship with.  We came up with a plastic table turned upside down for a ship, a tablecloth for the sea, a yardstick and fitted sheet for the mast and sail, and a Pizza Ranch Racing flag for our Pirate flag. He insisted the sides of the ship needed Cohen's bath towels and we tried to make a hull out of a cardboard box. This was mostly to make room for all the stuffed animals and blankets he put inside "to make it more comfy."A plastic spoon served as a sword and we even found a toy to represent "Tick Tock" (the croc).

Ryan wanted me to get a fan to make wind to push the boat around, but I gently broke it to him that this ship may not actually sail anywhere. He did his best to "put some wind in the sails," though.

Jake recruited a crew and even let Cohen pretend to be a pirate instead of a parrot this time.  

After getting bored just sitting in his ship for awhile and me nixing the "let's bang everything with my sword" idea, I decided he should go on a treasure hunt, so I scattered coins around the house and he went searching for the gold doubloons (which he calls "golden blooms").

 Once he found the coins, he said "Grab 'em, and go!" like they do on the show, and deposited them in his "treasure chest."

I made the mistake of taking the lid off the treasure chest without singing the magic words, so in case you're not up on proper pirate technique, you need to march around the chest singing:

"Yay Hey, well done crew!
Everyone knew just what to do.

Yay Hey, with help from you!
It's time to count our gold doubloons!

He had a fun morning playing pirate and I liked to see him use his imagination.  I think he makes a pretty convincing buccaneer.