Theme: Pirates
Age: Honey Pot is 2 years and 3 months old
Coloring Pages
I introduced this week’s theme with some pirate-themed
coloring pages that I found on the Internet. Both crayons and markers were
offered, but Honey Pot went right for the markers!
Book and CD
One book that has become a favorite in this house recently
is called Port Side Pirates. A friend of ours hosted what is called a
Barefoot Books Party, where we were able to browse tons of these beautifully
illustrated and uniquely written stories, some of them with accompanying CDs
such as this one. I highly, highly recommend these Barefoot Books. And
actually, I have ordered more through another friend’s party just today! So as
we do most every day, we listened to the catchy tune (which you can hear right here).
By the way, Honey Pot woke up from her nap with one of her
pretty dresses in hand, asking to wear it. So she wore it for the remainder of
the day, pretending to be a princess. Well, that didn’t interfere with our
pirate activities. Just call her Princess Pirate…aarrrrrgghh!
Buried Treasure Activity
Someone had given me the box from a bottle of Patron, and it
has since been just waiting among my craft supplies. So this week, I turned it
into Honey Pot’s treasure chest! I covered it in brown and yellow paper,
colored some wood grains on with a black crayon, and voila!
Then I put some rice (meant to be sand) and treasure inside.
The treasure is just golden coins and necklaces from the Dollar Tree. Super
cheap, but loads of fun!
I also created this template for Honey Pot to collect and
count her gold.
Add a pirate hat and patch (…find the free printable here)!
And my (princess) pirate is ready to go!
Honey Pot didn’t keep the patch on very long, but she was
very excited to explore her treasure chest!
She got right down to business. She dug her hands into the
rice and immediately pulled out the jeweled necklaces on top.
Then she picked up her first gold coin and, without
instruction, laid it upon the template.
Here are some snapshots of her digging for treasure. Note
Little M&M behind her…lol. He was very well behaved during his sister’s
activity.
This was also a fun sensory bin! She seemed to have fun
exploring its texture.
Some of the gold coins were really hidden! I had to help her
with the last three. I admit that I almost second-guessed how many were
supposed to be there actually, because they were so hard to find, lol. But lo
and behold we found them all. Here she is counting them up!
Telescope Prop
I had a spare paper towel roll, about to be tossed into the
recycling, when I realized it would make a great telescope for our little
pirate. So I quickly covered it in black and yellow paper, and added some
ribbon from my scrapbooking supplies. I also added some extra black paper on
one side that could extend out like a real telescope.
Here is Princess Pirate “looking far away” with her
telescope!
Pretend Play
After our successful treasure activity, we put all of the
treasure in a pile. I slid it all to my side of the table and said, “I stole
your treasure! I’m a pirate!” to help instill just what pirates actually do.
She quickly caught on and stole the treasure back. We did this a few times, all
the while using fun pirate phrases such as “aarrrrrgghh” and “yo ho ho!”
Ice Cube Boats and Sunken Treasure Sensory Bin
The inspiration for our final pirate activity came from a
blog called Alpha Mom. First we did a little color matching, as Honey Pot
placed one straw in each bowl.
I taped the straws into the bowls, and then gave her a
measuring cup to pour water into each one.
For the sails, I provided Honey Pot with a small piece of
scrap paper to decorate with crayons and stickers.
When she woke up from her nap, the boats hadn’t completely
frozen yet. So she stayed entertained with a sunken treasure sensory bin.
Finally the boats were frozen! I placed the coordinating
sails onto each straw.
And they set sail!
Suffice to say they melted super quickly! If we were to do
this again I would probably add ice to the bucket of water to help slow that
down. So I just added some of her toy boats (purchased in a set of three from
the good ol’ Dollar Tree) for her to play with.
We pretended they were pirate ships, searching for sunken
treasure and hoarding gold!
This theme…WAS.A.BLAST.
