Year 1 - Drama & Role‑Play – Becoming Night Pirates!

 

Drama & Role‑Play – Becoming Night Pirates!

This week in English, Year 1 set sail on a magical moonlit adventure inspired by the much‑loved story The Night Pirates. The classroom transformed into a world of shadows, sneaky footsteps, and brave young buccaneers as the children stepped into the roles of the characters and brought key scenes to life.

Re‑enacting the Adventure

To deepen their understanding of the story, the children worked together to re‑enact some of the most exciting moments:

• Climbing aboard the pirate ship Children used big actions and expressive faces to show how the little pirates scrambled onto the ship in the dark of night.

• Sneaking past the grown‑ups This was a favourite moment. The class tiptoed, whispered, and used careful body language to show how the pirates crept silently through the night.

• Stealing the treasure With plenty of imagination, the children acted out discovering the treasure and carrying it away triumphantly.

These drama activities helped the children explore how characters move, feel, and react — all essential skills for building strong storytelling.

Freeze‑Frames

We also used freeze‑frames, where the children paused mid‑action like living statues. Each group then described what was happening in their scene:

• What were the pirates doing

• How they were feeling

• What they could see around them

• What might happen next

This encouraged the children to use clear, confident language and to think carefully about the story from the characters’ point of view.

Building Vocabulary for Future Writing

Throughout the session, we collected exciting new vocabulary linked to the story and the night‑time setting. Words such as moonlit, sneaky, shadowy, glowing, crew, and treasure will support the children as they begin planning and writing their own Night‑Time Pirate Adventures in the coming lessons.

We can’t wait to see how their adventures unfold in their writing next week.