Pirate ship fine motor craft

During our pirate unit, we learned a lot about life on pirate ships. Ships, of course, were central to pirates’ lives and were where they spent a great deal of their time.

This is a simple pirate ship fine motor craft that kids of all ages can make. The best part is that kids can customize this craft to their liking and make the pirate ship reflect their own sense of style.

Note: You can find more pirate-themed activities on my Pirate Unit Study page. 

I started by cutting two half-ellipses from a grocery store bag in order to make the body of each boat.

I explained to my kids that they were going to make their own pirate ships, and could decorate them how they wanted.

QBoy decided to use markers to draw pictures on both sides of his ship. One side of the ship included a drawing of our family.

XGirl decided to use a small sponge to paint her pirate ship.

Once the kids had decorated both sides of their ships – and the paint had dried – I taped both sides of the boat together using painter’s tape. Then, once the sides were held together, the kids used a hole punch to punch holes around the outside of each boat.

After the holes were punched, I cut them each a length of yarn to lace through the holes.

The started at one corner and laced down around the bottom of the ship.

Once the round bottom of the ship was laced up – but before they had laced across the top – they stuffed crumpled up newspaper inside in order to give their ships some dimension. (At this point I removed the painter’s tape as it was no longer needed to hold things in place.)

After stuffing the newspaper inside, the kids finished lacing the top of the pirate ship. They tied a knot once they reached the end to keep the string from coming undone.

In the end, the kids ended up with two beautiful and very unique pirate ships. Plus, their fine motor skills got a nice workout too. 🙂

More Pirate learning resources

More pirate posts from Gift of Curiosity:

• Pirate Montessori activities
• Pirate sensory bin and small world play
• Parts of a pirate ship
• Lucky treasure chest
• Make your own telescope
• Make your own compass
• Books about pirates

You can find more pirate-themed activities and printables on my Pirate Unit Study page and my Pirates Pinterest board.

Follow Katie @ Gift of Curiosity’s board Pirates on Pinterest.