We play...

...on a Pirate Ship and Pirate Graveyard!!!

My mama lives in a big farmhouse that sits on a couple of acres.   In nearly every corner of the property, she has created a fun little place for the kids to play.

Here is one of the spaces that she has put together for the kids.  We call it the Pirate Fort and Pirate Graveyard. 

She took an old swing set and painted it blue and decorated it in pirate accessories.  It has old pirate flags and skulls and cross-bone plaques in the sides.  It also has a couple of nautical paintings that she found at the thrift store and hung up inside of the fort. 

The kids love to go there and pretend that they are on a pirate ship.  The pretend that the fort is the ship and all around it is the ocean.  All around the "pirate fort" we put some sand and some shells that we have gathered from our various vacations. 

Here is Marcus looking out at the "ocean" for other ships.  Instead he spots land.  "LAND-HO!" he cries.

In the first level of the pirate fort, there is a treasure chest full of fake beads, golden coins, and jewelry.  Sophia loves to play dress up with the necklaces.  There is also lots of other dress up clothes there including pirate hats, eye patches, swords, knight helmets, breast plates, and shields.

There is also a small piano that the kids use to belt out some pirate music. 

Next to the pirate fort, is the "pirate graveyard".    We collected rock's from Papa's garden (poor Papa had A LOT of rocks in his garden) and threw them under the tree making a rock garden.

Then we put in some pirate flags and some creepy crawly creatures in there to make it more spooky.   There are owls, snakes, spiders, and bats hanging from the trees.

The kids LOVE playing in this fort.  It has created hours and hours of fun dramatic play.

For pirate reading, I recommend the book On a Pirate Ship by Sarah Courtauld.


For more play inspired ideas, check out the blog Childhood 101.

Learning and Playing: Our Week in Review

 Here is an overview of what we did this week.  We use the Sonlight P3/P4 curriculum supplemented with some Montessori based tot school.


Learning Trays:
I had the following learning activities on the shelves for the kids--  (Note:  You can see more information on some of these activities by clicking on the links.)

1)  Cutting Practice (post coming soon!)

2)  Magnifying Glass Picture Match

 3)  Snake Counting Game

 4)  Melissa and Doug Magnetic Fishing Game

 5)  Lacing Beads

  6)  Pom-Pom Color Match (post coming soon!)

How We Use Learning Trays:
I keep the learning trays on a shelf in our "library".  When I first put out an activity I will show the kids how to "play the game" and how to put it away when they are finished.   Then, I leave them to it!  When they want to get out an activity, they are allowed.  If they are not interested, they can play with whatever they want instead. 

The green roll that you see in the top shelf is a rug that we use with the snake counting game.  I teach the kids how to roll it up and put it away when they are finished.  Sometimes that is more fun for them then the actual game. 

Some of these actives are repeats from last week.  I like to leave an activity out until I notice that they are no longer interested in it.  Why switch it out if they are still having fun with it?  Right?


Besides our Learning Activities, we had a lot of fun and playful learning moments at home and away.
Here is what we did this week.


Sunday
The kids went to Nana's house to play at the pirate fort.    They also played in their swimming pool and had fun pouring and dumping water.

Monday
On Monday, we went to a special tot school themed playgroup hosted by a friend of mine.  (For more information on our tot school play group, check out Barefoot in Suburbia.)    The kids read some books, played with sidewalk chalk, water, and various tot school toys.  Sophia enjoyed covering a page with stickers and Marcus found another little boy to play star wars with.  I enjoyed some GREAT conversation and company.  So all in all, it was a great day.

 (Photo courtesy of barefoot in suburbia) 

Tuesday
The kids got out their Learning Trays in the morning.  Sophia worked on sorting by color, and matching with her magnifying glasses.  Marcus was interested in playing with the fishing puzzle and stringing some beads on a shoelace.  (He said he was making a necklace for Nana.)

We also spent lots of time cuddling on the couch and reading books together.  My kids love to be read to and I strive to create a literature rich environment for them.  One of the great tools that I have found to do that with is the Sonlight P3/P4 book list.   You can read more about what we read this week here. 

We spent some time working in the garden and harvested our first ripe tomato, along with some GIANT habenaro and jalapenos.

In honor of our first ripe tomato, I read the story The First Tomato by Rosemary Wells. 


Wednesday
Wednesday is our library day.  We usually go to the library as a family and all pick out some new books to read for the week.  After the library, we had a picnic lunch at the playground and did some playing.  Then, we went to dairy queen and ate ice cream.  This has become a weekly tradition this summer.  The kids enjoy it and really look forward to it.  It is so fun to create special memories like this.

When the kids woke up from their nap, we met some friends up at the park for the local outdoor summer concert series.  This week they had a juggler.  It was Marcus and Sophia's first time seeing someone juggle.  Afterwards, they did a lot of pretending that we were juggling.  I packed a picnic dinner and we enjoyed it together as we watched the concert.  It was such a fun time. 

After the concert, we went followed our friends to another park and played until almost 9:00PM at night.  We are really enjoying these long summer days! 

I realized later that we had eaten every single one of our meals under the blue sky on a picnic blanket.  How wonderful is that?  We are very lucky to have such beautiful weather that allows us to do this. 

Thursday
The kids wanted to get out their learning trays again in the morning.   Here they are playing with the magnifying glass activity.

Then we read some more books.  After their nap, we went back to the park and played, played, played. 

Friday:
On Friday we stayed home and played with our toys and learning trays.   Here Marcus is working on the lacing beads.  He said he was going to make a necklace for his Nana.  He loves his Nana.  :)

 And here is Sophia with the cutting tray.

We cuddled on the couch and read some books together.

The kids also worked on their letter A crafts.

Sophia made an Alligator in the shape of an A.

Marcus made an Alien in the shape of an A.

Saturday
We went to the pool together as a family.   The kids enjoyed hot dogs, chips, and ice cream at the pool.  What is more American than that!?

In the afternoon, we were all very tired from swimming.  So, the entire family took a long relaxing two hour nap together. 

When we woke up, we made a special Independence Day craft.  You can read how to make it here.

 At night we went and watched the local fireworks together.  This has been a family tradition since before Doug and I were married.  It is even more fun now that we have some children to share it with.  We set up a place on the field with some lawn chairs.

 We also bring a blanket and pillows so that we can lay down and watch the fireworks together.

We got there early and played on the playground.

Then, we laid on the blanket in the field and watched the fireworks in the field.

 To see what some other kids are doing this week, check out:

Independence Day Craft

We put together a VERY fun firework craft the other day.  This idea was inspired by a really cool blog post done on the blog Casa Camacho.  We decided to put our own spin on the idea.  The kids love crafts like this because of the sensory aspect of squishing wet paint in their palms.  I love craft ideas like this because it captures the size of their little hands in their art.  This is sure to be one craft project that makes it into the memory box.

Here is how to make it:

1)  Gather your supplies.  You will need:

• Black Construction Paper
• White Paper
• Glitter Glue in various colors (we used red, white, and blue)
• Washable Tempera Paint (we used red, blue, and silver sparkle pain
• Safety Scissors
• Glue Stick
• Little Hands  (The most special of all of the tools!) 

(For quick and easy clean up I recommend getting a bucket of warm soapy water out with a couple of washcloths before you begin.  Then, as the kids finish, they can just dip their hands in the soapy water.  This makes cleanup quick, painless, AND fun!) 

2)  Decorate your night sky (black construction paper) with the glitter glue.  Fireworks come in all shapes and sizes.  Some are the big explosions while others are just pretty sparkles in the sky.  Our glitter gave us the pretty sparkles.  

 3)  Set aside your night sky (black paper) and allow to dry.  Next, mix up your finger paint.  Sophia mixed red and silver glitter together.  Marcus mixed blue and silver glitter together.

 4)  Dip your hands in the paint and then try your best to make a couple of hand prints on the white paper.  You will need at least 2. 

 I had originally planned on having the kids wash hands and switch colors.  (That way they would each get one blue firework and one red firework.)   However, they didn't want to stop and wash their hands.  So I just let them have fun and finger paint on some blanks sheets of paper for awhile. 

 5)  Allow hand-prints to dry.  When dry cut them out.

6)  Glue the hand-prints to your night sky. 
At this point, Marcus was no longer into using the glue sticks.  So he "outsourced" his gluing to his more than willing sister Sophia.  Sophia loves working on craft projects.  Marcus likes the part where he can get really messy, but easily tires of the whole gluing and cutting thing.  I like it that they each have such different likes and dislikes. 

 7)  Hold your completed project up proudly for all to see!  

What my children are reading...

One of our favorite things to do together is to cuddle on the couch and read books together.  Marcus sits on one side of me and Sophia sits on the other.  As I finish one book, Sophia will jump off the couch and go and pick out another one.  (Marcus leaves it to her to choose the books we read.) 

These are just some of the titles that Sophia brought for us to read this week. 


I am using these blog posts to help us keep track of the memories we create while reading and snuggling together.  I also hope that these book lists will help you to find some wonderful books to add to your home library.  I enjoy reading all of these titles as much as my children enjoy hearing them.  They are all high quality children's books...and as I always say:  Life is too short to read cruddy books! 


You may see some of the titles repeated from week to week.  As Sophia and Marcus like to hear some stories over and over again.  Remember, they are picking the titles listed here.  Not me!  So essentially, these are books recommended by Sophia (2) and Marcus (3). 


We Help Mommy*
by Jean Cushman

This little golden book was mine when I was a child.  It is illustrated by Eloise Wilkin who is one of my favorite children's book illustrators.  In fact, we even framed prints from this book to display in the kid's play kitchen room.  This is a very cute and nostalgic book.  Plus I love the "help mommy clean" propaganda message.  ;) 





A Child's Garden of Verses*
by Robert Louis Stevenson

We also read some selected poems from this book.  We have the copy illustrated by Eloise Wilkin.   

The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree by Stan and Jan Berenstain*

This was by far the most popular book with the kids this week.  I am not exaggerating when I say that I read this book 15 times in just one day!  They just kept asking for it over and over again. 

This book is great because it has rhythmic and repetitive text.  It tells a very cute story and definitely keeps the children's interest.



The Berenstain Bears Get the Noisies
by Stan and Jan Berenstain
This was a book the kids checked out of the library.  They saw the Berenstain Bears on the cover and got excited.  I didn't enjoy this book near as much as the one listed above.  However, the kids thought that it was really funny and asked to have it read to them over and over again.  They seem to really enjoy books where the kids are being "bad".  They think they are hilarious.  




Tikki Tikki Tembo Retold by Arlene Mosel
This is the story of two brothers.  The youngest son's name is Chang which according to the story means "little or nothing."  But the first and most honored son's name is Tikki Tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo which according to the story means "the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world".  However, Tikki Tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo's name gets him in trouble when he falls into a well.  It takes so long to say his name that it is a long while before any help is able to get there.   This story is told under the guise of being an ancient Chinese folk tale.  However, the story is much more similar to the Japanese folktale Jugemu.  Regardless of its original origins, the story makes a delightful read aloud.  The kids giggled delightfully as I said the ridiculously long name over and over again. 

The Teeny-Tiny Woman by Paul Galdone
Oh, how I love books by Paul Galdone.  I love how he has taken so many classic stories, fables, and folktales and given them new life through his illustrations.  His illustrations are so full of detail that a child is sure to find some new thing every time they read the story.  However, what I like best about his books is that he keeps the stories true to their original form.   He doesn't try to modernize them or make them more politically correct. This particular story is a VERY fun read aloud.  It is an old English ghost tale, but it is much more funny than it is scary.  It would be a great book to bring out around Halloween.  However, Marcus is very fascinated with things that are scary but not too scary.  :)  So he enjoyed this story very much. 

Poems and Prayers for the Very Young Selected and Edited by Martha Alexander*

This is a very sweet book for little children full of beautiful verses and prayers.  You will probably be very familiar with many of the poems collected in this book.  It includes classics from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Robert Browning.  It also includes many more moderns poems that are sure to be enjoyed by young children.





Pooh Goes Visiting by A.A. Milne, Illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard

Sophia loves Winnie the Pooh.  I am  not sure she gets all of the humor.  However, she enjoys the illustrations and the stories.   This is the story where Pooh visits Rabbit and eats so much that he can't fit out Rabbit's door.  So  he must wait until he gets thin again. 










Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion*

This is the story of a little dog who doesn't like to take baths.  So one day when he hears the water running in the bath tub, he hides the scrub brush and runs away from home.  He becomes so








First Tomato:  Voyage to the Bunny Planet Book by Rosemary Wells*

This is a very cute book.  We read this in honor of harvesting our first ripe tomato from our garden.  If you have never enjoyed a "bunny planet" book, I highly recommend that you check them out.  In the book, Claire the bunny has a very bad day:  She only is able to eat three spoons of corn flakes before spilling the bowl; she gets snow in her shoes; and she is the only girl at school who can't do a cartwheel.   So she escapes to a place called "bunny planet."  Bunny planet is a place where you can go and live the day as it should have been.  There she spends a summer day with her mother in the garden.  She picks the first ripe tomato from the garden.  Rosemary Wells does a wonderful job of describing the what it is like to pick the first ripe tomato from the garden:

"It smells of rain and steamy earth and hot June sun.

In the whole of the tomato garden it's the only ripe one.

I close my eyes and breathe in its fat, red smell.

I wish that I could eat it now and never, never tell."

Sophia also brought me these books and "read" them to Marcus and me.  Although she can't read yet, she has heard them so many times that she is able to tell her version of the story.  

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown*, **

and

Corduroy by Don Freeman **

* indicates a title that is part of the Sonlight P3/P4 reading list.

** indicates a title that is part of the Before Five in A Row (BFIAR) reading list.

For more ideas on books for children, check out: