Don't Miss Out - Treasure the Time Talk Like a Pirate!

What's a pirate's favorite letter? RRRRR!

What has 8 arms, 8 legs, and 8 eyes?  8 pirates!

Yes, it's time for all things pirate, International Talk Like a Pirate Day is September 19th and anyone who doesn't want to join in the fun can walk the plank! So dust off your tricorn hat, slip on an eye patch, and ramp up that fake accent - let's have some fun!

Teach your children what some of those pirate phrases mean AND enjoy a brain break with my silly pirate song on YouTube.com and don't forget to watch Jack Hartman's Pirate Song too!

 

Have you read Pirates Love Underpants? If you haven't, prepare yourself for giggles and silliness - there's not much that's funnier to a group of 5 or 6 year olds than underwear! (This is not an affiliate link, just a helpful suggestion).

 

After reading the book I love to do underwear math because math should always be fun! We practice counting, sorting, patterns and adding with underpants and even feed underpants to a dinosaur read color words.

Another awesome thing about pirates is their mustaches and beards - pirates are scruffy, just like it says in Tough Boris by Mem Fox! Why not add a little face paint and turn your students into pirates? Don't miss out on the fun, you definitely need a mustache too!

Want lots more ideas about pirates, including some of my favorite books? I've blogged about it here, here, here and here!

If your students are ready to add and subtract within 20, I have a FREE pirate themed activity for you! Students solve addition and subtraction facts, then color by number to reveal this burly fellow!

If you want more pictures like him, and want to differentiate for adding, subtracting, and a mix of both, each within 5, 10 or 20, then you'll love these guys!

I hope you treasure these pirate activities! Just in case you haven't had enough pirate puns yet, click here for more pirate jokes from Fatherly.com!

Happy September!

Paula

Top 10 Proven Preschool Activities for Pp

Number 1: PLAY!

If you do nothing else this week, please let it be play!  Of course, almost everything I suggest is about playful learning because it is essential for children, and pretty darned important for grown-ups too.

Number 2: Pizza

See, learning about the letter P is fun AND delicious!  You already know I love to cook with children, and what's better for this week than making and eating pizza?! 

Depending upon how much time I want to spend on this, and on the age and skill level of my kiddos, I've had them help me make pizza dough (I cheat and use the bread machine), or I've used something as a pre-made crust.  Both work beautifully, are fun and fairly easy, and you end up with something delicious that your children will want to eat.  Today let's talk about letting children make their very own mini pizzas by using half an English muffin as a crust.

 I like to put out pizza toppings for the children to choose, and invite them a couple at a time to come and assemble their pizzas.  If you want to really talk about the sound of Pp, consider offering pepperoni, peppers, and pineapple along with any other toppings you want.  

It does take a few minutes for a preschooler to scoop up the ingredients they want, and to spread them on their pizza.  They're making decisions, estimating how much they want of each ingredient, and working their finger muscles as they arrange the toppings.  This is a fine motor, sensory, life-skill, healthy eating experience, and that's definitely worth the time it takes!

Make sure you know who's pizza is where on the baking sheet, because they WILL want THEIR OWN pizza!  Bake it until everything is hot and the cheese is starting to turn golden, and then.... well, your child will help you figure out what comes next!

Number 3: Pigs in a blanket

This is another fun cooking activity for your little ones, and you'll just need a can of biscuit dough and some mini sausages.

Let the children cut the pieces of biscuit dough in half, and squish each half.  Lay a sausage on the dough, then roll it up.

Lay them on a baking sheet and bake according to the directions for the dough.  YUM!

Again, if you're not sure what comes next, ask your children, they'll know it's time to eat!

Number 4: Picnic

You might be thinking a picnic takes a lot of planning and preparation, but when you're dealing with children, simply taking your meal outside to eat equals a picnic!  I like to keep a picnic blanket handy so we can make a picnic in just moments.  Have a large box from a delivery?  Instant picnic table! 

There's something magical about getting outside to eat - and of course, once they're done eating, it's time to PLAY!

Number 5: Puddle Stomping!
 

This is one of my all time favorite preschool activities, and one I think most of my former students remember well, even many years later.  I have a couple of pro-tips to help make this activity go smoothly, even with a group of children.

- Plan ahead.  Before you ever head out the door, make sure you have towels and dry clothes handy for afterwards.  Is your child wearing something that is okay to get wet, or do they need to change into play clothes first? Is the puddle in a place that's safe for bare feet? 

- Set limits.  Is splashing okay?  Are you getting full body wet, or just feet?  What space do you expect the children to stay in?  By thinking this through ahead of time you save yourself having lots of tired, wet children making a mess in your house afterwards!

I like to have the children take off their shoes and socks inside, and then head out. We run, we stomp, we splash... then we look for earthworms that have been washed out, and gently rescue them from the puddles.  We run around some more, and we notice how different everything looks when it's wet.  Take off your shoes and stomp right along with your child - I promise, it's fun!

Number 6: Penguins

Read about them (here's a post about penguin books), craft them, act like them, there are so many awesome ways to include penguins in your learning! Did you know Emperor penguin daddies keep their unhatched eggs warm on their feet? 

Penguins DO waddle, but they also like to slide on their bellies, which is called tobogganing.

They live in colonies or rookeries, and their chicks are fluffy and gray - NOT black and white.  

These are pictures of our penguin rookery - the patterns and instructions are available in my TeachersPayTeachers store here if you're interested, or for a penguin craft and games for learning letter P, check out this resource:

Number 7: Pirates

I've blogged about our pirate activities several times - check those posts out here, here and here!

Number 8: Hand prints and foot prints, of course!

As always, you can find the original inspiration for each of these, and many more ideas for similar crafts on this Pinterest board.

Number 9: Puzzles

Do you and your littles do puzzles together?  Puzzles require children to look for similarities and differences in shape and color, to rotate pieces, to work their finger muscles, to think about what the picture is supposed to look like, and much more.  Start with puzzles with 4 or 5 pieces, and work up to more complex ones.  You can usually find puzzles at resale stores or garage sales for very little money, and your local library may also have some in the play area that you can use while you're looking for books!

Number 10: Letter crafts

Make the letter-sound connection by creating letters that go along with some of the letter Pp activities you're doing this week.  We added penguins to pink or purple lower case letter p, and turned the upper case P into a pepperoni and peppers pizza pie. 

Have a great week friends - peace!

ARRRR You Ready to Talk Like a Pirate?

Did you know there's such a thing as Talk Like A Pirate Day?  It's celebrated (okay, that may be stretching the truth) on September 19th each year.  Now I don't know about you, but I'm all for dressing up, painting a beard on my face, and talking funny like a pirate, especially if I can say I'm doing it for work, for the children.  Who's to say I'm not?

I've found pirate learning to be a great match for learning the letter X - after all, X marks the spot, but isn't used for a whole lot else that makes sense to little kids.  As you can see my students enjoyed eye patches, cardboard hats (I found both of these at the dollar store), and stick on mustaches or tempera paint beards.  Add in a toy pirate ship, some inexpensive compasses and beads, and some cardboard "bones", and you have the making of letter study and pretend play.

I blogged about pirate learning several years ago, and included photos of some of the other pirate learning we've done: digging for treasure in the sensory bin, walking the plank (literally a plank on the floor!), costume play, and crafts.

Since then I've created many pirate themed resources to bring a pirate theme to measurement, reading, addition and subtraction, counting money, patterns, and numbers to 100.  If you're looking for some quick pirate themed lessons, I hope you'll check them out.

I've also gathered lots of pirate ideas on my Pinterest board - you can check that out here:


Finally, I thought I'd share some fun pirate videos that are targeted at the preschool - primary grade crowd.  These will get your students in the mood for pirate fun!  My students loved to dance along to Portside Pirates and to Jack Hartmann's Silly Pirate Song - and they make great brain breaks.  Want to talk about addition?  Try Harry Kindergarten's When You Add with a Pirate.  Ready for a silly story that will have the kiddos giggling?  Try Pirates Love Underpants!

That's it fer now, me hearties, ye've got some pirating to do now! 

X Marks the spot

Ahoy Mateys! We're learning about the letter x this week, so it's time for some serious pirating - because X marks the spot.  It is so difficult to find things that start with x and that are relevant to the children... at least, it was, until we included pirate things.  We dressed up, got pirate temporary tattoos, made Xs out of all kinds of piratey things, and scowled, arrrrrr!

 And every self respecting pirate (an oxymoron?) needs to search for buried treasure, so we dug in the sensory box for gold dubloons, 'jewels', keys and shiny bits and pieces.  Dubloons were definitely the favorite!

 My own boys, mostly grown now, loved this pirate ship toy when they were little.  Now the kiddos enjoy it, and had all kinds of pirate pretends this week.

 I got out an abc fishing game, because pirates have to eat fish.  (We had tuna for lunch this day too.)

 I had all my scurvy dogs walk the plank, right into the ocean with fish, sharks, and even salt water crocodiles.  One of the kiddos added the puppy... poor puppy!

 Here are some of the pirate books we read this week.  Our favorite of all is Tough Boris, by Mem Fox.  When my boys were little, my husband would read it to them forwards, and then backwards.  Not to spoil the story, but one page, read backwards, says "died parrot his when but."  The kids think that is the funniest thing ever!  I also really love Roger the Jolly Pirate, by Brett Helquist, because... well, you'll have to read it to find out why.

 We did a cute pirate craft, to work on our scissor skills.  Some of the children had trouble cutting out the face, because I traced it on some old file folders, and the paper was too heavy for them to cut.  Next time, I'll use plain old manila paper.   I found the idea on applesandabcs.blogspot.com.

If you're looking for even more pirate activities, I have made a variety of fun pirate themed resources available on my TeachersPayTeachers store, including this fun class book:

My kiddos really enjoy writing, reading, and re-reading class books.  They have such ownership of the books we make together, and want to see and hear their work over and over again.  This particular class book repeats the sight words "the" and "where".

There are a few other things that start with X, of course.  We talk about x-rays and skeletons a lot this week (vocabulary: skull, spine, ribs, vertebrate, invertebrate).  Yes, I know, those are awfully big words for little kids.  Here's the thing, if you introduce big concepts in a way that relates to something the kiddos care about, sometimes they remember!  When I showed the children a skeleton book this week, and said that the frog was a vertebrate, because it has a back bone and a skeleton, one of the children commented that the octopus does not have those, and is an invertebrate.  (He's five years old.)

I have a collection of old x-rays that I've accumulated over the years, and post them around the room.  The kiddos aren't scared, just fascinated, because that's how I present them.  This year we even got a dog x-ray to check out!

Here are our Xx crafts: x-ray man, and a xylophone inspired by playandlearnwithdana.  Pretty simple, but I did pull a little measurement in by having the children seriate the bars for their xylophones, from longest to shortest.  As usual, the kiddos did a really good job of cutting out their letters!

Of course, we made our hand print crafts!  The kiddos chose either an x-ray fish, or a hand x-ray to make.  Notice the number of "bones" they put on the hand x-rays: 3 bones in each finger, 2 in each thumb, plus a longer bone in the palm for each digit. Once again, they may not remember it at all, but if we expose them to ideas, then it's possible they may.

We also played xylophones and other musical instruments while we were outside this week.  I like to have the instruments outside, where its okay to be loud and exuberant.

We finished our week off with a picnic outside in the wonderful sunshine, and outside story time. 

I DO love spring!