Pirate Tot School & Preschool Corner

M is 3.5 years old

R is 22 months old

I decided this week to do just one post for both Tot School and Preschool Corner.  R always wants to do what M is doing, so lately I've been finding ways to include them both at the same time.  It take a bit more preperation on my part but leads to far less tantrums on the part of the almost 2 year old.  If you have two of similar age, I hope it helps for you to see how I do keep them both involved even though they are clearly at different levels!

As far as the theme goes, I had a few reservations about doing pirates.  I mean basically they are theifs, right?  Well after we found some cute printables and a great kids show about pirates, I figured I could do this theme in a way that doesn't glorify stealing or bad behavior.
Printables

Color By Number / Coloring Page from Making Learning Fun
M worked on a color by number page, while R colored plain coloring page.

Pirate Vocabulary from Homeschool Creations' Pirate Lapbook
Neither of my kids knew all that much about pirates, so this was a great starting point for learning what pirates are all about!

Luckily this week M woke up early from her nap one day, and R was happily occupied with some puzzles in his room on another day, so I was able to do the rest of our printables without having R get in the way!

The printables below are all from the Pirate Pack on 2 Teaching Mommies.

Prewriting practice.  She's getting really good at staying on the lines!

Which is Different?

Number Cards - mark the number that corresponds to the amount of items

The printables below are from Homeschool Creations

Pirate Ship Size Sorting

Pirate Ship Board Game
We rolled a dice and moved our markers (gold coins) around the board to the finish line.

 The printables below come from Making Learning Fun, one of my new favorite sites!

Beginning Letter Sounds Pirate Ship
She glued the pictures to the flags that had the corresponding begining letter.

Pirate Chest Letter Assesment
M matched the lowercase letters written on the back of gold coins (circles cut from gold scrapbook paper)
with uppercase letters on the sheet.  She has known her letters for a long time but it doesn't hurt to review!

Montessori Style Trays
I tried this week to make Preschool Trays and Tot Trays that were very similar but slightly different as far as skill level.

Message in a Bottle
I rolled small scraps of paper and M put them in a narrow necked bottle w/ chopsticks while R used his fingers.

Treasure Sorting
M sorted different colored buttons into seperate containers.
R worked on his fine motor skills and put buttons into a piggy bank.

 Art

The kids decorated pirate hats using the printable from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Aging a Map
They painted a piece of paper with coffee to make it look antique.
This is the paper I used for our treasure map below.

Activities
These the kids always seem to do together anyway, so it works well for this kind of post.

Walk the Plank!
They had a great time balancing on a 4x4 that I laid on the ground (wearing their pirate hats of course!) 
Great for gross motor skills!

M said that real pirates have telescopes, so I pulled a couple of toilet paper rolls out of the recycling bin and they were set!

I used the "antiqued" paper from their art project to make a treasure map.

M deciphered the map (which was of our front yard)...

And they found the treasure!

A sensory box!  Dirt filled with necklaces and other treasure they had to dig for!

Books & Movies
I introduced the kids to Jake and the Neverland Pirates this week (under reccomendation from a friend) and they loved it!  We don't have cable, so we watched a couple of episodes online.

That's all for this week!  To see what other toddlers and preschoolers are learning this week, check out the official Preschool Corner website and Tot School Website!