P is for Princess

In honor of M’s birthday, we are doing a Princess Theme this week! M is obsessed with princesses right now (it’s the reason she will only wear dresses – princesses wear dresses!). She has a lot of princess themed activities already, and received a few more as gifts over the weekend for her birthday. We are also having a Fairy Tale birthday party with a few of her friends next weekend. We are following the same schedule that we started last week.

What’s on Our Shelves?

 

Plan for the week

Practical Life

Scooping Fairy Dust

This idea came from Discovery Moments. I used salt and a little glitter, and put it in plastic "glasses." I added a spoon from our china set to make it a little more special. (See it in action)

Polishing the Magic Mirror

This idea also came from Discovery Moments. I don't actually have room to put this out yet, but I'm planning to rotate some of the trays later in the week to add this. M also got a Melissa & Doug Wooden Princess Mirror for her birthday, and I'll probably put that out for her to decorate later in the week too. (This one didn't happen...)

Setting the Table and Serving Guests (Tea Party)

I printed a cute table setting place mat from Simply Fresh Designs, and we will use another birthday present (Disney Minnie Bowtique Teapot) to practice setting the table and serving tea and cookies to our "guests" at a tea party. This is always one of M's favorite activities! See how much fun we had!

Princess Dressing Magnets
This adorable set (Melissa & Doug Princess Elise Magnetic Dress-Up Set) is like the new version of paper dolls. The magnets are so easy to switch out, and M can come up with all kinds of combinations with the skirts, tops, hats and gloves. (See it in action)

Ballerina Dress Puzzle

The last activity is another Melissa and Doug product (I think I need to buy some stock in that company...) that M received as a gift for her birthday. I really like that the pieces on this puzzle are interchangeable, so it's similar to the dressing magnets, but in puzzle form - Melissa & Doug Ballerina Mix 'n Match Puzzle. (See it in action)

Sensorial

Pie Sensory Bin

This amazing and easy idea came from Little Bins for Little Hands. Click here for the full update, as well as our sensory-filled apple picking experience.

Play-doh Cookies
I found some cute princess-theme cookie cutters at Walmart, and threw them in a basket with some play-doh, a small rolling pin, and a jar of pink and purple beads that M can use to decorate pretend cookies. I'm sure these will end up as part of a tea party... (I was right!)

Pink Pig Collage
The blue bird collage from last week was a hit, so I decided to continue with a pink pig collage for Letter P Week. I haven't put this out yet, but I'll just print a clip art outline of a pig, trace it onto pink construction paper, and then give it to M with an assortment of pink collage materials (beads, buttons, pom poms, sequins, glitter, etc.).

Themed Lunches
M really liked the Letter B Lunch I made last week, so I'm going to continue with some themed lunches this week as well. I'm looking for pink food, food starting with the letter p, and some easy recipes from The Fairy Tale Cookbook that I got from the library. How about some porridge from The Three Bears for breakfast, or The Wicked Queen's Poison Baked Apples from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for snack?

Letter P Lunch

Strega Nona's Pasta
Snow White Poison Apples

Language

Sandpaper Letters
M isn't showing much interest in the sandpaper letters, but I'm keeping the letter of the week out just in case. If I were truly focusing on letters, I definitely wouldn't have done "b" and "p" back to back because they look and sound so similar! We're focusing more on the theme, and throwing in the letter as a bonus, so I don't think it makes that much of a difference.

Letter P Basket

The pie sensory bin is the main sensory activity for the week, and I didn't want to create a second sensory bin. Instead, I just collected as many small objects that started with the letter p as I could find around the house and put them on a tray with the sandpaper letter p (above). I'd love to collect more little objects. I've seen the Safari "toobs" on Amazon, and it seems like they have almost any theme imaginable - I bet I could go broke buying these! Check out the Musical Instruments Toob and the Around The World Figures. So cute!

“Tracing” Letter P with Princess Stickers

I tried this last week with the letter b, and M wasn't interested, so I'm not exactly sure why I'm attempting again. We do have a LOT of princess stickers... worth a try? (Nope, didn't happen, but we did this Letter P Collage with stickers.)

Magic Board Letter Practice
I bought the Lakeshore Learning Magic Board and Printing Practice Cards that our library had (M seemed to really like them when she used them a few weeks ago). I put the letter p practice sheet on the board, and put the board and the box with the rest of the cards in a basket. She hasn't noticed them yet, but she did enjoy tracing some of the letters on Sunday night after she received the set.

Reading Princess and Fairy Tale Stories
As usual, I collected a bundle of books from the library. I also have some classics, like Aesop's Fables (Tuesday) and Grimm's Fairy Tales (Wednesday and Thursday) that we'll read from.

Write a Letter to a Princess
I saw a post on Facebook about receiving an autographed photo from Disney if you mail a letter to their Communications office. I googled it, and found this post on Because I Saw it on Pinterest. It worked for them, so I figure it's worth a try... I'll let M pick her favorite princess to write to, and we'll get to practice writing a letter, addressing an envelope, and putting mail in the mailbox. See our letter here.

Here's the address if you'd like to try it yourself:
Walt Disney World Communications
P.O. Box 10040
Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830-0040

Math

Baking Princess Cookies
Using the same princess cookie cutters (washed, of course) we will make and decorate some royal sugar cookies! Yum! (This didn't happen - we opted for baked apples to use up the apples from our apple picking instead!)

Cultural Studies

Timeline
I don't want to get into too much historical detail yet, but I'm planning on creating a very basic timeline to hang on the wall. I'm going to choose a couple of major people / events, and add laminated pictures with dates into the Mystery Bag one day this week. We'll put a picture of M with her birthday first, then work backwards to add a few more. I haven't decided how big to make the timeline yet (how far back it will go and what time divisions I will use), so I'll have to update as I create it. (Still trying to figure out how to make this work - I want a timeline that dates back at least as far as dinosaurs, but doesn't wrap all the way around my house. Am I asking too much?)

I'm trying to make my blog posts a little more manageable so they won't take me forever to write and be so long, so I'll post more updates and link back to this original post. Check back throughout the week for my updates to see how everything is going!

Stained Glass
Since I wasn't able to pull together the timeline, we did a quick toddler-friendly stained glass activity instead. Look here for details.

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