The week of treasure

The boys and I had a fun week last week. Daddy was away all week on a business trip and so I planned a few special activities to get us through :) We have taken some time off of our rigorous school schedule to do more free play, adventures, organizing the house/school materials and just plan relaxing. Mama has little energy these days but on the days I do I try to pack in a lot of fun stuff for my fellas.

A few months back I had purchased some fun pirate "stuff" in the dollar section of the art store. I didn't want to focus on pirates, I am not much into the whole cranky old guy waving a sword around, but rather on what our "treasure" is or should be...with a hint of cranky old guy NOT waving a sword around :)


I started by reading one afternoon during lunch, Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. I told the boys that the real treasures are our love and relationship with Jesus Christ. That His Word is a great treasure and teaches us how to live our lives so that they are pleasing to him. We had a lot of discussion about things that are important to us but that ultimately it is our faith and love in Jesus that is the biggest treasure of all. We also read a story about a man who sold everything he had to purchase a piece of land where he knew there was buried treasure, in our children's book. Charlie has a new love of reading his Bible and told me the other day we should read it everyday. I am so glad he is more enthusiastic about reading it, we had been reading it almost daily and he grew tired of it, so we put it up for a few weeks and did other biblical based activities.

We made treasure maps. This is Charlie's

We decorated our treasure boxes and the boys had free creative reign over their designs. They had so much fun and I really enjoyed watching them and helping them glue their "jewels" on their boxes
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We made our own edible jewels out of marshmellows, a thin frosting of powder sugar and water, and of course jewel like sprinkles. The kids LOVES these and they are so simple and easy to make!!

Charlie made a pirate ship out of legos and other blocks. He is really into building and LOVES his legos.


Charlie made a real pirate ship out back using the red wagon, a large tree branch and a milk crate. I loaned him a table cloth for the sail and he and Tommy were off and sailing.
And what treasure week wouldn't be complete without a treasure hunt!? I made up a treasure map and hid picture clues around the house and outside. They had so much fun running from place to place looking for their treasure boxes. They found them in the backyard under the slide. I had put little golden chocolate chicks (leftover from Easter) in them.


Charlie wore his pirate hat and gave Tommy and S. red bandannas to wear, you know because they were his mateys.

We also did some other fun learning activities, sensory bin with ocean theme.
Tommy played with Mr. Potato a lot and playdough was also a big hit. Charlie worked on his phonics and math workbooks as well. Thomas wrote his name for the first time. He has been able to write the T and the O for a long time but just recently got the hang of writing the M. He was really proud of himself, and so were we!!!
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It was a great week and Charlie told me that he wished he could have a treasure hunt everyday!