A Pirate Adventure in the Bath, featuring Jelly

                  

This week’s theme is the sea, I had thought up this activity last week as a boat trip featuring Pirates, Mermaids, Sailors and whatever other sea related things we had been doing this week. I was aiming to sway our week and the bath adventure towards mermaids as I had seen a fantastic competition by Taming the Goblin to win a mermaid waldorf doll she had made.  However the Pirate theme has lasted longer than expected  (I have posted about our pirate lunch and walking the plank),so today became a Pirate adventure, in particular based around Luath's favourite book of the week "Tim, Ted and the Pirates".  A story about a boy and his Ted who drift off into their own adventure while the teacher reads a story. 

I thought it would be fun to combine our love of jelly (we’ve done a couple jelly based things lately, jelly playdough and jelly play in the bath, with a previous imaginary boat trip.    I  came up with a few different ways I could set up a sea themed boat ride in the bath. Realistically I have a daughter who is awake most of the hours I am, sleeps best if I am very nearby and wakens frequently at night, so most things are done with Luath by my side or at high speed and quietly!

Last night I made up a big tub of jelly.  I had wanted to fill it with treasure but they kept floating to the top.  I left some letter cutters floating at the top..  This morning once the jelly was set I pushed some more cookie cutters into the jelly.  I had also filled some ice cube moulds with jelly (yet again I couldn’t get the jelly out). 

A few nights ago I drew an underwater scene on some lining paper. I did this on the floor and with crayons so it is no work of art, but I was guessing it might not last long.  I attached this to the wall opposite the bath. (The drawings didn’t photograph well, but I have included them anyway and will upload a better photo once they are in Luath’s room)


some seaweed, a fish and a seahorse



a mermaid, a shoal of fish



jellyfish, treasure chest, a crab


I also drew a sea level scene, Luath helped me colour it in.  Well I coloured, she had  a few scribbles but mainly enjoyed walking along the picture.

  I attached this to the wall next to the bath.

Nessie, buoys with a cormorant drying it's wings

a diver, a boat

a canoeist, a lighthouse, rocks, seals, birds, a crab

I put some blue/sea life towels over the side of the bath and attached some undersea pictures we had drawn earlier in the week.  I placed a towel with fish over the undersea level of the toilet.  I hung up a duvet cover (that I specifically bought second-hand as a play mat) over the window and down to cover the bath taps and the toilet to sea level.  This wasn’t as effect as I hoped as it let in too much light.  I covered the radiator with a play mat, the floors with a bathmat, a throw and towels.

I then placed Luath’s bath in the bathtub, as this was to be her boat. I filled the bathtub with cold water coloured by some green jelly and food blue colouring to well below the rim of Luath’s bath.

I placed some towels over the sink to act as rocks.  I put our mermaid - this is actually a dress up doll that Luath got handed down from a cousin, for our previous boat trip adventure I had given the doll a mermaids tail (which I had made for Luath when she was a few months old for a party), we both liked the mermaid so she has stayed..  I covered the mirror with another seashore towel (we seem to have so many sea themed towels, this one is very old and is now a dog towel!)  I attached a parrot to a picture hook.

I added some sea creatures to the bath and the surroundings.  I had contemplated taking some dried seaweed from above the tide line, but changed my mind.  I cooked up some noodles and used that instead.  I had thought about some stones and shells, but the big shells around here tend to still have live seaweed attached and Luath has plenty interaction with stones everyday (this week she even picked a stone up to give it a cuddle).  I also added a treasure chest, filled with gold (sweet wrappers I have been saving for ages to use for art) and milk bottle tops.  I had used all the food colouring from the bottle so that went into the bath as a perfect message in a bottle.

I did this all quite quickly, Luath helped me, but still each time she came into the bathroom she said “wow” (she knows just what to say!)

Then the most important addition – Luath.  She was decked in her Pirate AIO nappy and  a vest, just what all the toddler pirates like to don.    . 

Luath had another look around and then I placed her in her bath.  She seemed happy for the first few minutes and then she wanted out and was quite upset.  I took her out and thought “oh well, we can try later”, but she actually wanted to go into the bathtub with everything and not be in her bath boat.  I added some hot water to make it more pleasant, stripped her (naked Pirates are all the rage) and in she went. 

The noodle seaweed was the first thing she grabbed.  I am sure she knew it was noodles but she went along with mummy and called it seaweed.  Next the jelly treasure tub.  This took a lot of exploring.  Taking our the cookie cutters, delving in to find more, adding other creatures to the mix, squeezing the jelly.  I told her she could eat it, but she wasn’t sure.  I showed her me trying some, again she wasn’t convinced, so she stuck her hand in and offered it to me.  After a little while she did try some, she had a few tastes, but not sure she liked it that much, or just found it more fun to play with than eat.

I read her “Tim, Ted and The Pirates”, and acted out the parts we could.  I used a teddy cake mould as Ted.  Once the story was over we opened the treasure chest, which gave Luath some more items to add to her Jelly.

Luath had enough by then, so our adventure was over.  I left some of the bathroom decorated so daddy could see it when he came home.  The pictures were undamaged.  I am going to draw round the outlines of each object in them so you can make out the picture a bit more clearly and then put them up in Luath’s room.  There is plenty space to add more images to both pictures.

We (and I do mean we) had lots of fun.  I am sad that the photos didn't come out as I would like to have a good visual memory (other than in my head) of activities like this.

(Luath is 17mths)

linked Tuesday Tots, see what other tots are up to,
read learn explore at JDaniel4's Mom, see what other activities have been inspired by children's books

taming the goblins mermaid project