Ages ago, like several years at this point, we listened to Treasure Island on a road trip. It’s a fun classic adventure story and if you have a kid who likes pirates, it’s well worth reading through. After finishing it all up, we had a blast talking about the movie and being silly with some treasure maps. But it all came down to the book and a movie night in the end, for a quick Treasure Island book club.
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Treasure Island synopsis
Jim Hawkins discovers a treasure map on a dying pirate staying at his family’s inn. Through a series of adventures, he meets up with Long John Silver and heads out to find the treasure. Along the way Jim is confronted with the reality his friend, Long John Silver, may not be the friendly cook he thought he was.
Treasure Island is a coming of age tale, and has been a favorite adventure story for a few hundred years. Written by Robert Louis Stevenson, almost the inventor of the adventure tale.
Over the years there have been a crazy large number of adaptations for Treasure Island. Growing up I saw the classic ’60s Disney Treasure Island adaptation because Disney was coming out with a sequel to Treasure Island for the Disney Channel, or that’s what I remember. I just remember it suddenly being big again when I was in 5th grade. Then a few years later the Muppets followed up their wildly popular Muppet Christmas Carol with Muppet Treasure Island, which I LOVED because Muppets and classic literature. Then Disney finished up their crazy Treasure Island bonanza with an animated movie, Treasure Planet, part of their attempt to bring in tween boys. It didn’t perform well at the theaters, but I thought it was fun.
With that slate of possibilities, I was debating between Muppet Treasure Island and the 60s classic for us to watch for our Treasure Island movie night.
Treasure Island Movie Snacks
This was during the early days of our book and a movie, so I didn’t plan a meal to go with this. If I had, it probably would have been a stew of some sort.
LABELS FOR THE SNACKS ARE ON THE SUBSCRIBER PAGE. JOINING MY NEWSLETTER GETS YOU INSTANT ACCESS AND A COUPON TO GET THE PRINTABLE BOOKMARKS OF BOOKS MADE INTO A MOVIE FREE!
- treasure- chocolate coins
- swords- carrot sticks
- snuff box- sliced cheese (it looks like a hard cheese, maybe manchego from the picture)
- beef jerky- well… beef jerky
- black spot- chocolate cookies or oreos
- jungle- maple leaf cookies
- peg leg- pretzel sticks
- cannon balls- whoppers
- hard tack- the hard tack recipe we made as part of our Age of Exploration Unit
In case you’re wondering, for our movie we ended up watching the classic 60s Disney movie. Partially I did this because it was what I found at our library. I spent a lot of time debating between the classic movie and the Muppet version, they’re both good, but our library had the classic one.
Apparently, when we had our Treasure Island movie night, we watched a bunch of movies that month. I’m guessing we also watched Holes that month, and Bridge to Terabithia.
Treasure Island Book Club
Since we listened to this as an audiobook, we didn’t do a whole lot with it beyond having fun doing some treasure hunts. I hunted around online and check with a few friends to see what they had (I got a bunch of generic pirate stuff aimed more for younger kids, but I found a few fun treasures):
- Treasure Island Unit Study– of the posts shared, this is the most what I was hoping for, Lara did a great job picking out vocabulary words and coming up with a wide variety of activities.
- Pirate Treasure Chest snack– this would be a fun snack to add into our Treasure Island snacks
- Why did pirates wear eyepatches?
- Pirate Unit Study
- Pirate Unit Study 2
And on my own site, some great ideas for a Treasure Island book club
- Age of Exploration pretend play– this was a mini unit within the Age of Exploration Unit with lots of great pretend ideas and some great crafts to make models of actual sailing tools
- Age of Exploration Unit– great science experiments about sailing and some great book lists
- Blackbeard– The ultimate pirate captain here in the United States
More Great 6th Grade Learning
- 6th Grade Homeschool Curriculum
- Percy Jackson Book Club
- How to Conduct an Interview
- STEM: Design a bridge to cross an oobleck ocean
- Christopher Columbus Writing Assignment
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
I remember not liking Treasure Island much as a child because I kind of remember it as being violent. But I am intrigued by a Muppet version because we all love Muppet Christmas Carol. If you say that it’s good, I will look for it!
I LOVED Treasure Island as an audiobook when I was a kid but my own children have zero interest in audiobooks. So I’m the only one listening to them. Maybe I’ll get grandkids who want to listen along.