Prepare to be Boarded! Arrrgh! – Part 1: Building a Pirate Ship

by patternmemommy

A big part of Camp Mommy is father-son time! As I planned out Crowley’s ocean adventures during the week, we also planned a special project for little man and my husband on the weekends. And what better weekend project than making a pirate ship out of our cardboard moving boxes and other recycled materials! Not only does Crowley have a pirate ship but he has memories to last a lifetime, too.

So here’s my husband, Mike Redding to explain how he did it and how you can, too!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Building a pirate ship is easier than it looks. Basically it’s cardboard and tape.

Just don’t try this during the hottest month in the history of the earth… like we did. That said my 3-year-old and I had great fun. He really gets into the measuring and line drawing, taping and painting. It turned out to be an amazing father-son project. I looked forward to every minute we worked on it! Almost.

If you have perfectionist issues, I have two pieces of advice: 1. It’s not the destination; it’s the blah blah something blah, and 2. Work quickly during nap times. Truth be told, you have to scale back your expectations for how it will look and how long each step will take. 3-year-olds are pokey and we took a lot of snack breaks. We also stopped to play catch, ride bikes, water the plants/driveway and play chase during the project.

Here’s a complete list of what you need:

-5 cardboard moving boxes (I used Home Depot moving boxes from our garage… we move a lot. 1-wardrobe box, 2-large packing boxes, 2-small packing boxes)

-2 rolls a brown paper packing tape (U-Haul… it’s paintable)

-50 feet of the cheapest looking ¼” rope you can find (Lowe’s)

-6 Wire Ring Anchor Points (Lowe’s… these are typically used for permanent tie-downs)

Here’s the anchor points / tie downs so there’s no mistaking what to get.

-10 Spring Snap Links ¼’  (They look like small rock climbing karabiners… Lowe’s)

-Zip ties (Home Depot)

-Small box of 1&1/4” drywall screws (Home Depot)

-3-feet 1”x3” pine board cut into 12 pieces 4” long (Home Depot)

-2 cardboard masts roughly 6-feet long (Lowe’s gave me these from empty carpet rolls)

-2 dowel rods ¾’ in diameter and 3’ long (Home Depot)

-1 lightweight 3” wide cardboard tube about 2-feet long to cut into cannons (This is the kind of tube a print of some art might ship in)

-5 Minute Epoxy

-Whatever color paints you want. We used 100% washable black, brown and red. (We actually mixed out own brown initially. Epic fail. It looked more orange so we used is as a primer coat. In fact most of the interior is still that orangish color.)

 Days 1 and 2:

This one I found is actually for sale. Not making this up. For a cool 3/4 of a million dollars it’s yours! Call Mark Barrett for more details: 619-336-2403, Please don’t sue us, Mark, but your pirate ship made a great model to build from.

I looked through my spyglass –or Googled, you decide– to find a pirate ship. Generally speaking, the back of the boat is tallest, the front is second tallest and the center is lowest. So I grabbed a wardrobe box for the back, one of the large packing boxes turned at a 45-degree angle for the front and the small packing boxes became the sides. The second large packing box eventually became the bowsprit (that pointy nose thing sticking up and out of the front).

Attaching the bowsprit was easy. Just let the box flaps rest flat on hull and tilt to desired angle. We taped it in place and then sliced off half the box.

From this pic and others below you can see how the boxes form the ship/

WARNING: EVERYTHING when sitting in a big garage looks smaller. My two-mast schooner ended up 11-feet long and about 35-inches wide at the cannons. We happen to have a massive bonus/play room over our garage so it fits… it’s HUGE but it fits. So please consider the size of the room where your boat will end up. Then configure the boxes and start taping. I also measured the doorways to make sure I didn’t build it too wide. I cleared by a half inch. (If you make yours small enough, two kids could wear it for a Halloween costume.)

Not brown. Epic fail.

There’s a good deal of me sitting and staring at the project. I call it research and development. Just all in my head. How much extra cardboard will it take to stableize the hull.? Should I buy some thin slats of wood to keep weak spots from buckling? What to make the masts out of? And on and on.

Anyway, Crowley and I had it all taped together in about an hour. I took a razor knife and trimmed away portions to help the overall shape (and to give a little boy a low spot on each side to climb in and out of the boat). After that  we started painting. With the help of pre and post nap paint covered wardrobe changes for C, we had it coated inside and out by the end of day 2.

And we only worked on it for about five hours total.

Days 3 and 4: Figuring out the masts… check back tomorrow.

Peace… Anna’s hubs, Mike

We swab our decks with 100% washable paint.

A Manly Swashbuckler Needs a Feathered Hat

by patternmemommy

It seemed like such a simple plan. Cut two pirate hat shapes out of craft foam. Glue together. Decorate. Wear. All went beautifully until we got to the ‘wear’ part. It ripped. Immediately. The satisfaction of Crowley stenciling the Jolly Roger on the front of that hat was gone. Ugh. Ugh. And ugh.

So it was while having this very conversation with my dad (AKA Jerrypedia), that he said something brilliant: “Why don’t you buy a wide brimmed sun hat and tack up the brim to make a tricorne hat?”

And that’s exactly what I did. I bought the cheapest black sun hat that Target sells and tacked up the brim.

You can do  this with a needle and thread or a glue gun. I also added a bright red ostrich feather from a craft store.

Easy. And because it’s a real hat, it will last as long as Crowley and his cousin Oliver want to play with it!

C’s cousin The Good Pirate Oliver.

Oh… and just one point of fact (from Jerrypedia of course), a tricorne hat is called that because it has three corners. Ummm, as I’ve mentioned before we are working on counting in our house. And since our tricorne hat has four cornerns, I guess I need more work on math…or sleep!

Arrrggg!!!

Anna

P.S. Start gathering your cardboard boxes. Monday, we’ll show you the world’s best father-son project and how you can do it too! Think freaking awesome pirate ship!

Are You Hooked?

by patternmemommy

Your little pirate has an eye patch and a spyglass, now we need a hook for the hand! Here’s an easy way to make one in about 15 minutes!

You Need:

  1. Red solo cup
  2. Red duct tape
  3. Aluminum foil

Instructions:

STEP ONE: – ADULT ONLY – using sharp end of scizzors cut a hole in the bottom of the cup. Ours is about 1/2 inch in diameter. This does not need to be precise as long as you don’t cut the bottom of the cup out!

STEP TWO: Hand toddler a nice sheet of aluminum foil (about the length you would use to cover a casserole dish). Your child will roll up the aluminum length wise.

STEP THREE: crunch the aluminum to compact the foil and mold into the shape of a hook.

STEP FOUR: Flattened the end to be inserted into the cup.

STEP FIVE: Insert one end of the hook into the cup. I pushed enough of the hook through to allow Crowley to have a handle to hold onto inside the cup, about 4 inches (give or take).

STEP SIX: Use pieces of red duct tape to cover the plastic cup’s hole, where the hook is inserted. Do this to the inside and outside of the cup, making sure to secure hook while also covering any jagged plastic edges.

You are done! Enjoy!

Anna

P.S. Tomorrow, I’ll show you the world’s easiest way to make a pirate hat that will last!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!

by patternmemommy

Hope you have a wonderful holiday!

Anna and Co.!

Happy Independence Day from our neighborhood 4th parade!

A Quick Pirate Eye Patch

by patternmemommy

We call my dad, Jerrypedia… because his name is Jerry and he’s like Wikipedia but more accurate. He’s a walking, talking encyclopedia. At all times, we are ONE phone call away from anything we need to know. Lost on a highway? No problem. See a bird and want to know which type it is? No problem (the answer will also come with said bird’s migration pattern, diet, and where you need to buy the best bird seed to feed it!) He should be on Leno. Really.

And so, in telling Dad that Crowley and I are making an eye patch today, he passed along something you might all like to know. Pirates did not wear eye patches because they had a bum eye. They wore them so that when they went below the deck, which was utter darkness, the covered eye could see easily in the dark. They moved the patch to the other side, took care of business and headed back into daylight! Who knew? Don’t you wish you had a Jerrypedia? I mean Google just can’t offer the same context.

So your little pirate is going to need an eye patch. There are TWO ways to approach this. One involves sewing. One doesn’t. The truth is I love to sew. Especially for my boys. But here is a link to a no-sew tutorial that is easy and comes up with a very similar result. And while we are on the subject of sewing… not that we are… but if you think you might be interested and are on the fence. Go for it! It is so much fun and is not hard. It’s like following a recipe in the kitchen. That’s all. And like anything, else the more you do it the better you get. And also like anything else, once you feel like you are awesome at it, you’ll make silly mistake and voila… humility! Circle of life. There it is.

I digress. Where was I?

Pirate Patch…

Shopping list: (substitutions of whatever you have on hand will be perfect!)

  1. Black felt (only C insisted on red “because red is my favorite color. see?”) I think it would be great in pink as well!
  2. 1/4 inch elastic. You can buy black elastic, We had white on hand and I think it looks great!
  3. (Optional) Foam jolly rogers stickers

STEP ONE:

Create a template for your patch or use the same one I did. I found it here.

STEP TWO:

Place template on top of two layers of felt. Following your template, cut carefully. You will end up with two eye patch shaped pieces of felt. These two layers will be sewn together with the elastic sandwhiched between the layers.

STEP THREE:

Take your elastic over to your child and measure. You want a piece that comfortable fits around their head meeting each side of the patch. Add 1/2 inch to that measurement. NOTE: the elastic should not be stretched when eye patch is in place.

STEP FOUR:

Sew the end of the elastic to the side of one felt layer of the pirate patch, using  a 1/4 inch seam. Repeat for the opposite side of the patch.

STEP FIVE:

Place the the second piece of felt on top.

STEP SIX:

Sew the two pieces of felt together, using a zig zag stitch.

Decorate with a foam sticker if you like.

SMALL PRINT: I originally tried making a pirate patch with black craft foam and found that the foam could not stand up to one minute of toddler play. ALSO, it goes without saying, that this project contains elastic and could be a strangulation hazard for a younger child who is playing with it unsupervised or who is playing with a bully. There, I said it.

Enjoy!

Anna

I Spy an Enemy Ship on the Horizon…

by patternmemommy

In our garage is what’s shaping up to be the most amazing pirate ship ever built… out of cardboard. Seriously, you are going to love it! At Camp Mommy, our week days have been filled with ocean exploration from crafts to science to reading, baking, and more. But on the weekends, it’s time for father-son magic. Crowley and his dad have spent hours creating the Conch E. Conch, an incredible pirate ship. Full tour to come! Along with details on how they did it.

But before a pirate can set sail, he needs a few things. First, a spy glass! So, armed with a cardboard paper towel tube and a sheet of printer paper, we get to work. Here’s what your official supply list:

  1. Paper towel tube
  2. Printer paper (1 sheet)
  3. Glue stick
  4. Elmer’s glue
  5. Sheet of black construction paper
  6. Crayons/paints/or other coloring tool of choice

STEP ONE: Color your sheet of printer paper. This will be the outside layer of your spyglass.

STEP TWO: Using glue stick, cover back of printer paper.

STEP THREE: Place paper towel tube down onto long edge of printer paper, leaving about 1/4 inch hanging over the edge of the tube.

STEP FOUR: Attach paper to tube by rolling tube.

STEP FIVE: Using Elmer’s glue, squirt a line of glue on the inside edge of printer paper left hanging off tube

Ring the edge of the paper with glue

STEP SIX: Fold that glue covered edge down, into the tube.

Folding the edge down into the tube, gives your matey’s spyglass a more finished look!

STEP SEVEN:  Cut  a rectangle of construction paper wide enough to cover the end of the spyglass for a two-tone look.

REPEAT STEPS 3-6 for the end where you are attaching the construction paper.

You are done!

By the way, the pirate hat Crowley’s wearing up top comes from one of my new favorite web sites, 2TeachingMommies.com. It’s part of a FREE pirate activity printable pack that includes cool looking worksheets for pre-writers, recognizing patterns, shapes, and working with numbers and letters. Crowley and I call them our pirate games! He loves them and I get excited about how much of the activities he can do.

Tomorrow, more easy pirate gear for your munchkin!

Anna

Temps High. Patience Low. Keep ’em Happy and Cool Inside!

by patternmemommy

This weekend, the temps here will reach 103 and it’s only JUNE! Okay, it’s almost July. But this is extreme heat even if it were August!

So here’s a list of 10 things you can do with the munchkins inside! Here’s to keeping the mini-mes cool and happy so mommy or daddy doesn’t go off the deep end.

1. Make your own Portholes! You can attach them to a submarine or a ship… or simply hang them from the ceiling. Click here for complete instructions. This is a fun one for children of all ages.

2. Hunt for Shark’s Teeth.

3. Paint their little hands and feet and make these awesome sea friends with their tracks!

4. Make a sea turtle, then adopt one!

5. Grab a paper lunch bag and some paint and make a whale!

6. Make chocolate pops. This is a kitchen project that doesn’t require turning on the stove or oven. And your toddler is capable of doing this with just a little help from you! (Please do not hold me responsible when said child is bouncing off the walls after eating this delicious craft. My advice? Make. Eat. Leave child with grandparent.)

7. Ice treasure hunt! If it’s too hot to do this outside. Set up ice treasure in the bath tub!

8. Movie Morning! or afternoon! Or night! or Marathon! These are the ocean related movies we’ve been watching this month. Finding Nemo, A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventure, The Magic School Bus Catches a Wave, The Little Mermaid, The Backyardigans: Surf’s Up! THe Backyardigans – Pirate Treasure.

9. Make your own July Fourth decorations! Here are I few ideas we’ll be trying from Pinterest.

10. Beach Ball Bonanza – Move the furniture. Put away the collectibles. And teach your little one to keep that beach ball in the air as long as possible. This WEARS CROWLEY RIGHT OUT in no time at all! Guess what we’ll be doing today?! You can get a beach ball at he dollar store or Target for a buck. Awesome!

Good Luck!

Anna

Message in a bottle… or maybe an ocean

by patternmemommy

This is a fun summer project to bring out the scientist in your munchkin!  What better way to understand what a wave looks like and how it moves than to create one yourself… in a bottle. And the best part is your toddler is perfectly capable of doing a lot of the work (as long as you work over the sink!)

SUPPLY LIST

All you need is an empty clear plastic bottle.

Enough oil to fill 2/3’s of that bottle (we used canola oil but I hear baby oil works even better because it’s clear)

Blue food coloring

Optional – sand, sea shaped beads or gliterry confetti

Funnel

Super Glue

INSTRUCTIONS

Step 1 – holding plastic bottle and funnel, have toddler fill 1/3 of the bottle with water.

Step 2 – add enough blue food coloring until your ocean water has arrived at desired color.

Step 3 – (optional) have toddler add sand, beads, confetti, etc.

Step 4 – holding bottle and funnel, have toddler pour the previously measured out oil into bottle.

Step 5 – ADULT ONLY – super glue cap shut!

Now, slowly tip the bottle from side to side to see that wave roll! Or if you are a toddler and can’t resist the urge to shake it like your life depends on it, feel free! And mommy, you pray (as I do) that the super glue will hold!

There are a couple of ways to add more dimensions to this project. One is to play the sound of waves crashing onto the beach. iTunes has a number of nature sounds that will fit the bill.

While Crowley plays with the bottle, I am reading him the Pig Kahuna by Jennifer Sattler. It’s a great little tale about waves, beach treasure and the courage to face your fears. If you want to see our complete Ocean reading list, click here.

Also, another awesome find is the website 2 Teaching Mommies. Click here for their FREE printables on the ocean. Everything from pre-writing worksheets with engaging graphics to practice measuring and recognizing letters. I LOVE these worksheets. And even better, so does Crowley!

Happy Ocean Making!

Anna

p.s. Tomorrow, I’ll have 10 cool projects to help you escape the heat with your kids and still have a great weekend.

Ice Ice Baby!

by patternmemommy

It’s going to be 100 degrees today! One hundred degrees! And that’s in the shade, don’t forget. Do your kids play in the shade? I didn’t think so.

That’s why I went hunting for a great extreme-heat craft/playtime event for Crowley. And I stumbled onto pure frozen gold. It’s from a blog I’ve come to worship, Happy Hooligans.

In fact this idea came with a HUGE sell. Blogger Jackie said this activity would occupy my child’s attention for an HOUR and a HALF! Is that even possible? Never! LIAR!

I decided I’d be happy if he enjoyed it for 20 minutes. 30 tops.

Did it work? In a word, YES!  FOR 90 GLORIOUS MINUTES! Just like she said!

Oh me of little faith.

It’s simple. I collected some small items and put them in a sand castle bucket filled with water. I put the bucket in the freezer overnight. Once frozen I popped the ice block out.

Then I handed Crowley  a bin full of warm water, two jumbo plastic syringes (not the needle kind – just for the record) to squirt the ice with the warm water, and a bottle of grinder sea salt. His job was to free the objects trapped in the ice. No chipping. No hammering. Just melting. A particularly awesome activity having just viewed Happy Feet 2 last night!

I chose toys and foam letters that reinforce our themes this month.

A couple of notes: You can use any kind of salt shaker but I chose the more expensive sea salt with built-in grinder for motor skill development. If you want to add a little more science to this project, bring out some sugar too and conduct an experiment to see if sugar melts ice as well as salt.

Also, in one bucket, I added blue food coloring to create even more interest… which it did.

For some reason, for this age, colored anything is interesting. Eventually, I added red food coloring to the bin of warm water, which made it 1000 times more interesting to a 3-year-old. And so Crowley set about freeing his toys and sure enough… an HOUR and a HALF went by before I had to bring our fun to a close to serve lunch!

So we are doing this again today! And if it gets too hot to be outside, I’ll turn our bath tub into a frozen toy freeing station!

Enjoy!

Anna

Which Number Comes After Three?

by patternmemommy

One of our goals this summer is to work on counting, numbers and shapes. And here’s the truth about journalists… at least in TV News… Great with words. Numbers, not so much. So, as a former reporter, I really have to focus on making numbers a bigger part of our conversation and summer exploration. I mean he can easily count to three, only because it’s the foundation of my discipline. “I’m going to count to three and if I get to three, you will have a time out.”

In fact my dad randomly asked Crowley which number comes after three and he said, “Time Out!”

Oh Yes, a shining moment, it was not. Luckily, we weren’t in the pediatrician’s office!

While those first three numbers will remain “special” in our house, our ocean and beach mural provides us a great opportunity for counting much higher!

Crowley and I are using small pasta shells as the sea shells for our beach.

First step, Mom writes each number 0-10 on the beach with glitter glue to spice up our sand.

Then Crowley counts out the number of shells needed for each numeral and glues them around each number.

We also created an octopus. Crowley painted half a paper plate for the head. Then following my lines, he cut long strips of construction paper that we glued together to make even longer strips for octopus arms/legs. I accordion folded them for him. We attached the long arms to the plate. Then we added a shape to the bottom of each arm. On the shape we numbered each tentacle.

This was great fun! It hangs from a ceiling fan and has become a favorite for eliciting giggles from Baby Quinn!

Also, each morning we are working with shapes. We call it our shape challenge.

I give Crowley several shapes and ask him to make them into something specific whether it’s a light house, an anchor, sailboat, etc.

After our shapes come together, we add them to the mural

It gives us a chance to spend more time than normal life allows to consider each shape and how they can be used together to create something entirely different.

Using shapes cut from sand paper can add a great sensory aspect to creating a sand castle!

My Aunt Erwin, who’s spent decades as a preschool educator, says this is helping Crowley develop problem solving skills. I’m very excited about that.

I also think these skills can be used in the foundations of art. It’s easier to draw something complicated if you can break the object down into shapes and smaller steps. Actually, isn’t that a great approach to just about any problem?

Have a great day!

Anna

P.S. All this TV news talk reminds me. If you are not watching Aaron Sorkin’s new show ‘The Newsroom,” you are missing out! It’s the first realistic look that I’ve seen (in a long time) at what’s actually happening behind the scenes in a newsroom. Loved it. LOVED it. Sunday night’s HBO or after the fact on Itunes! Disclaimer: Sorkin is not paying me to say this, but he really should.

Mesmerized by Moonjellies

by patternmemommy

Can you imagine anything more magical than your grandparent loading you onto a motor boat one summer’s night and heading out along the cool waters of the sea, only to find an ocean of magically glowing moonjellies?

This is how our study of jellyfish begins, through the words of a captivating a children’s tale: Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha. The story is inspired by the author’s own childhood and gives Crowley and I plenty to talk about.

And as soon as we put that title on our sea serpent, it’s time to look at real jellyfish LIVE through this web cam.  There are a number of great jellyfish cams out there from which to choose!

C listening to the ocean in a seashell while watching some jellies…

Warning for the tired, the very tired and the up-all-night sleep deprived… watching these floating sea pillows makes you very sleepy. So look away while the children are making their observations.

Next step.. we need to make our own! Through Pinterest, I found this super cool looking “Jellyfish in a bottle” craft. The idea comes from an incredible blog with great directions. Easy enough. Crowley can help.

WRONG! SUPER HARD! If we had to turn it in for a grade, I’m afraid we’d get credit for completing our work and that’s about it.

The concept is easy.

Take a produce bag from the grocery store.

Make something akin to a Kleenex ghost and fill the head with water.

Trim the trailing bag into tentacles and pop into a bottle of blue water.

BUT, our jellyfish kept floating to the top.

I asked another stay-at-home down the street for help(she has a PhD in Chemistry). She came up with this suggestion.

Put something that’s denser than water into the jellyfish’s head.

So I made ice cubes out of salt water. Ice cubes are easier to work with than filling jelly fish head with water.  The salt water achieved a much better result after the ice melted.

Our jellyfish looked real enough that Crowley was nervous when I touched it, that I would be stung… like Dori. So after several attempts… mission accomplished. This would be a great science project for a middle schooler, especially if they are experimenting with different fillers to explore density! Though, to be honest, the thought of that makes my brain ache.

If you find an easier path to success with this project, don’t keep it a secret! Please share it with me!

Anna

PIRATES! …Arrgh! Let’s Eat Them!

by patternmemommy

Let’s just face the facts. Since becoming a mom… the days of a perfectly straight house, ironed guest sheets, project started and completed, laundry done, gourmet dinner cooking (as soon as I get back from my manicure)… they are OVER! At least for now in this very, very heavenly/demanding/depleting/stuff dreams-are-made-of infant/toddler phase.

And let me state for the record that I would NOT have it any other way.

That said, on a regular Saturday, when you just stumble onto greatness, and that greatness is easy to attain and I mean E-A-S-Y… now that is a very special little holiday from reality. And I really enjoyed it. Especially when Crowley saw it and said, “Wow!” So, here it is, the pirate cake… I mean the pirate CAKES. Plural. Two. May it inspire you to try it and I have this EASY moment for yourself too!

After the icing is set, you can use the top of a wafer to stamp the deck with this cool pattern.

I found the idea from the Disney Family Fun website. They have easy to follow instructions. The ship is basically made out of two halves of a round cake. You use the icing to marry those two pieces. Honestly, check out the instructions. You will be surprised. Nothing to this.

TIP: I also put a glob of icing under the cake to fix it to the platter, allowing for more stability.

A couple of things I did differently. Instead of using skewers alone for the masts, I put the skewer through the center of long wafers. Hidden inside the cake, the skewers attach the mast to the ship.

I chose these cookies for mast, cannons and cargo!

The gold coins can be found at Amazon.com but if you want Chocolate coins, I spied some at The Fresh Market. I found all of the cookies/wafers at Earthfare. The cannon balls are chocolate caramels.

The pirates are from a Pirate Toob by Safari and are lead and phthalate free.

The sails are made from craft foam.

Crowley stenciled the skull and crossbones which was a GREAT exercise, learning to simply tap-tap tap. The Jolly Roger was intended for a pirate hat. When placing said hat on Crowley’s head, it ripped and was ruined. That was not a moment of greatness. But I’ll get to an easy, easy pirate hat idea (that does work) this week! Enjoy!

Happy Monday!

Anna

p.s. Though we made this cake as part of our ocean learning, wouldn’t this cake be fantastic for a pirate birthday party or play date?

Toddlers, Leatherbacks and Loggerheads

by patternmemommy

It only took a couple of minutes of watching this night-time video of baby sea turtles hatching… Crowley fell completely in love. And who can blame him? Sea turtles are very special animals. They are also very vulnerable.  The movie, A Turtle’s Tail: Sammy’s Adventure, made that point so well, even featuring time spent in a sea turtle hospital. That piqued Crowley’s interest. And so we showed him what I think is the best story ever told about a sea turtle hospital, this one, told by Crowley’s dad!

And so, with special attention, Crowley made his own sea turtle. It is kind of amazing how many uses you can find for a paper plate. I found easy to follow instructions and templates on this website, which provided tons of sea turtle factoids for us to chat about while he carefully painted the turtle’s shell green. I do not expect Crowley to run to his friends and drop the word carapace (shell), but I do think that exposure to different topics, words and experiences is building a powerful foundation in that busy brain.

Nothing explains how dearly Crowley takes things to heart then when he asked to make a picture for the sick sea turtles at the hospital and mail it to them in what he calls, “You know. The black mail… black mail metal thing… what is it called?”

“Mailbox”

“Yes, Mailbox. I want to put it in there with a stamp and everysang.”

And so we did.

He even kissed the letter before posting it.

I mean it just erases all the days frustrations that come with raising a three-year-old. Erased and replaced with more love than I have the capacity to carry!

And so it only makes sense to complete our lesson by adopting a sea turtle. Which you can do for about $25. Check out the Topsail Sea Turtle Hospital site for more info.

This was a great day! And we are going to end it with Crowley’s new favorite book, Freckles and the Great Beach Rescue by Ellen Bryant Lloyd and Carol Schwartz. It is a wonderful story about friendship that takes shape during a crab and puppy’s frantic attempt to rescue baby sea turtles. Perfect!

-Anna

Teach them… with Chocolate!

by patternmemommy

Crowley’s first taste of Chocolate

Ever since his very first bite, there is no food Crowley loves more than chocolate. It is a word he could not yet say when he first tasted that rich sweetness. So with a love struck look in his eye, he named it ‘ChaCha.’  To his day in our home we say and eat “ChaCha.”

And there is no easier way to teach my little man than through his confection obsession. So we are making chocolate pops molded into the shapes of sea creatures.

And spoiler alert… this is by far the EASIEST thing we’ve attempted. Also, Crowley did nearly all of the work! (He also ate all the work.) So while the result is impressive looking, don’t be intimidated.

Personally, had I known it was this easy, I would have done this for every holiday and birthday party as favors!

Visit your nearest kitchen supply or craft store for these items (we shopped at Michael’s):

  1. Chocolate/soft candy mold in sea shapes
  2. One bag of chocolate candy melts. (Feel free to get other colors. They come in a rainbow of choices.)
  3. Disposable candy melt bags
  4. Lollipop sticks

All of these supplies are listed on the instructions on the back of your candy/chocolate mold tray.

Have your child fill the pastry bag with candy melts.

Twist the end closed.

Microwave at 50% power for 30 seconds.

Holding the twist top of the bag closed, have your child knead the chocolate through the bag.

Repeat last two steps as necessary for the chocolate to reach your desired consistency.

Sneak a taste of the ChaCha

Now cut of the tip of the bag and let your child fill the molds with the chocolate ooze!

Note: They will flood and overflow the mold. This is easily fixed at the end.

Now if you are doing this by yourself. Go ahead and take care to tap air bubbles out of chocolate.

Place sticks half way up into chocolate candy and gently turn the stick so that it is coated in chocolate.

Place in fridge to set.

Once set, easily pop out of mold.

PARENTS ONLY: Trim the excess around the edges with a knife.

Voila!

These were delicious enough to share!

Crowley, his friend Jack and Jack’s little brother Hunter (too young to eat ChaCha -thus sadness)…

SHARK!

by patternmemommy

Last summer, Crowley’s grandfather (AKA “G.G.”) held little Crowley tightly in his arms as they waded into the the surf crashing lightly on the North Carolina coast. I was already pregnant with Quinn and relished watching Crowley enjoy the ocean with his G.G. There were very few people on the beach. About 20 yards away, a woman was fishing.

It was a beautiful scene… until… that woman… caught not ONE but TWO sharks! I am forever scarred by the experience. By the way, NOTE TO SELF: If someone has bait on a hook near your child, take your child out of the water. Got it? Got it. Good.

Even though there are scars, we will push through and learn what we can about our many-sharp-toothed friends anyway.

And speaking of teeth. G.G.’s been collecting shark’s teeth since I can remember. The tiny teeth (and some not so tiny) wash up on the beaches here. If you look closely enough, you’ll find them.

Naturally, our first step in learning about sharks is introducing Crowley to the thril of the hunt.

We filled a casserole dish with sand bought from a craft store and carefully buried a handful of shark’s teeth. Crowley’s job was to find them.

And boy did he! We handed Crowley a loop (you can use a magnifying glass as well) for a super close inspection. The small ones are easy to hide in the sand. But Dad also produced some as long as three inches. This was a opportunity for Crowley to talk about the differences and similarities between them.

He got a big kick out of this, feeling how sharp they were and imagining the size of the animal those teeth once belonged to!

If you don’t have a shark’s-tooth-toting G.G., a quick google search turns up a number of places selling them. You can also do this with tiny seashells and other sea treasure.

Next we head to the “Adventure Room” to make a shark! First we need a little inspiration. And you don’t have to look any further than Atlanta, Georgia… online. The Ocean Voyager exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium is incredible and their web cam provides plenty of LIVE sharks for us to watch in REAL time.

Now we need a shark for our own ocean! Here’s where I found the idea. This blog has easy to follow instructions.

Our last touch was for C to start experimenting with writing. So I wrote the word ‘shark’ on the project in white crayon. C traced it. Fun!

Want to incorporate reading? A patternmemommy.com reader suggested Shark vs. Train by Chris Barton and Tom Litchenheld. We can’t wait to read it!