Pirate Weapons and Swordplay
Who does not love an exciting pirate duel? Weapons and battle were important in pirating. Without these things, pirates could not successfully capture booty and get away.
There were basically three types of weapons: long-range, medium range, and short range. Long-range weapons included cannons. These were not as favored, since they tended to do a lot of damage. Since pirates were trying to capture ships and not destroy them, they used these carefully. Medium-range weapons included many types of guns. Short-range weapons were the hand held type. The cutlass, sword, and dagger were favored by many pirates for hand-to-hand combat.
Research and discuss different weapons and their uses by pirates. Check out this pirate site for good pictures and descriptions of commonly used pirate weapons. The Pirate's Realm is also a good source.
Try it out! Have fun with a little hand-to-hand combat. You need two people and some good, long candy, like Twizzlers or Red Vines. Those hard breadsticks in packages work well, too. Use these as swords and battle. The person with the longest weapon left is the winner!
Learn a little real sword work! Visit Sick Individual Producation's site for good descriptions and pictures of 6 basic offensive and defensive swordfighting positions. (Not a bad site, but not extremely kid-friendly. Adults need to check this one out).
Stage a fight! Using the sword techniques you have learned, stage a pirate sword fight. I used a long pool floats(like Pool Noodles). I cut these in half length-wise, and these became our pirate swords. That way, no one got hurt! And everyone had fun!
Watch a good sword fight. Find a movie to watch that demonstrates this well. If you child is old enough, you can watch "Pirates of the Caribbean", of course. Also good, and our family's choice - "The Princess Bride". the swordfight between The Dread Pirate Roberts/Wesley and Inigo Mantoya is especially thrilling!
Have fun and stay safe!
Christine Alcott - Christine is an active homeschooling mother of 4 boys in Texas. She holds a BS in Mental Health and Human Services and a MTS in Theology ...
