Pirates!

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.

Play Date Book Club

Theme: Press Here, by Hervé Tullet

Age: Honey Pot is 2 years and 3 months old

Hugely inspired by one of my very favorite blogs, Mommy and Me Book Club, I decided to include some structure to one of Honey Pot’s play dates this week. I chose one of her current favorite books, Press Here by Hervé Tullet. This is a wonderful and unique book that requires audience participation. They are asked to press, shake, tilt, clap, etc. and observe the results of their actions. It is very fun, and very cute to see the children react to the new arrangement of dots.

Originally I had created an entire tot school theme out of this, with multiple activities and even a dot-inspired snack. But because it was my first time, and I wasn’t sure how interested the children would be, I kept it quite simple.

First we read the book.

 

Then I provided the three girls with booklets (made just from two sheets of printer paper folded in half and stapled together) and dot markers. These I purchased from Amazon, and we love them! For older children, after they are done creating their dots, you can ask them to create the captions for their books.

 

For this idea and others for Press Here check out this blog post at Crayon Freckles!

And I apologize for the lack of pictures. I didn’t want to scare Honey Pot’s friends away.

Pigs

Theme: Pigs

Age: Honey Pot is 2 years and 2 months old

Books

We pulled out quite a few books from the library for this theme, and read them throughout the week. Here are our favorites from our selection:

If You Give A Pig A Pancake, by Laura Numeroff

Pigsty, by Mark Teague

The Pig In The Pond, by Martin Waddell

 

Pig In Mud Craft

I happened upon this fun craft from a great site called All Kids Network. I printed the template out onto pink cardstock and supplied Honey Pot with some brown paint, so she could muddy up the pig! I explained to her why pigs love to play in the mud (to keep cool, to keep the bugs away, etc). At first she dragged her sponge across the pig, covering nearly the entire thing. She loved doing this, by the way, and sang a merry little tune about getting the pig muddy.

Then I quickly printed out two more piggies onto regular paper for her to muddy up too. Otherwise the craft would have been too quick! This time I showed her how to dab the sponge onto the pig. Here is the final result:

Pig Lunch

Meet the Dubiens, a site I visited just recently for inspiration during our penguin theme, provided the idea for Honey Pot’s lunch. They do a wonderful series called Fun Food Friday, where they design the most adorable lunches! So we gave the piggy a try.

Honey Pot identified it right away, and really enjoyed the surprise!

Mud Sensory Bin

It had to be done. It really did. We’ve been having a tremendous amount of rain recently. Every time I looked out the window at a particularly muddy spot in our backyard, I just knew Honey Pot would have to get her hands into it. First I asked her if she remembered what pigs like to play in. “Mug!” she shouted. Well, close enough. I provided her with some dry dirt, and let her pour water into it to create the mud herself.

Then, hesitantly, she began to explore it. Note I dressed her in nothing but “waterproof underwear” (Little Swimmer diapers, really) to minimize the mess.

Ew. What is this??

Once she realized the fun factor of mud, she really got into it. “I be like a pig! Get all muggy!” she said. She started scooping, stirring, squishing...

And…well, pouring it onto herself.

And of course, the feet must go in!

It was a huge success, and after a quick cleaning off with the hose, we jumped right into the shower afterward. A great week of piggy, muddy fun!