P is for Princess and the Pea!

With my two older boys in school, my preschoolers at home are both of my girls. When I suggested to my 4-year-old daughter that we could have a P is for Princess day, she was pretty excited. I don’t think the boys would have been quite so thrilled The baby decided to take a 3 HOUR NAP (heavenly!) so the girls and I just kept playing. Fun morning. (These activities would also work for handsome little princes too!)

• Getting all Dolled Up … a little princess prep Not necessary, but definitely fun!
  1. Do your hair … my older daughter was happy to have her hair done “fancy” today. Ribbons, bows and all. My 2-year-old has a little cold and was grumpy today. She preferred her bedhead hairdo That works too.
  2. Make princess crowns … these two got new fancy tiaras for Christmas, but of course, they wanted to make their own
     • Cut out a simple crown design.
     • Add long strips of paper to each side.
     • Decorate with stickers, crayons, jewels, and glitter (I didn’t dare today!)
  3. Add a gown … they each picked out a dress-up princess gown to wear.

• Peas and Carrots Snack
  1. Spread out a blanket on the floor
  2. Put carrots and peapods in a bowl for the kids to snack on while you read the book.

• Read “The Princess and the Peas and Carrots” by Harriet Ziefert … the illustrations are one of my favorite things about this story. And I love that Rosebud’s dad tells her the real “Princess and the Pea” story as a bedtime story (a fold-out book inside). A cute little twist on the traditional tale. I made sure to add that Rosebud’s mom HELPED her clean up her room after her tantrum
  • NOTE: You could always go with a more traditional Princess and the Pea story.

 

• Where is the Pea? … my girls loved this game
  1. Cut a simple bed frame out of brown paper.
  2. Cut out several colorful “mattresses”. I used one of each of the basic colors because I wanted to work on color names with my 2-year-old.
  3. Cut out a smallish green circle for the “pea”
  4. TO ASSEMBLE:
     • Tape your bed frame to the wall (down low)
     • Stack the colorful “mattresses” by taping the top edge (so it flaps open from the bottom.
     • Hide the “pea” under one of the mattresses
  5. TO PLAY:
     • With the kids, count the mattresses. We had 10!
     • Name all of the colors.
     • Have the kids tell you one color. Lift the mattress to see if the pea is hiding underneath! 
  6. NOTE: my girls’ favorite part of the day was these little paper princesses I made with their faces. I just google searched “princess clipart” and chose the one I liked. I cut out the face and substituted one of my girls. They loved them. I tried to draw my own so you can print them out and color the hair and dresses … not bad

 

• Our ‘P’ pea banner … we had to have some decorations for our fancy princess day.
  1. Cut out several circles from green cardstock.
  2. Think of as many ‘P’ words as you can.
  3. Write the word & draw a picture of it.
  4. String them on a ribbon and hang up!

 

• The Pillows and the Pea Game … this game was pretty entertaining
  1. Spray paint a golf ball green = the pea.
  2. Set out several pillows on the floor.
  3. TO PLAY:
     • Hide the golf ball “pea” under one of the pillows.
     • Have the kids take turns sitting on the pillows to discover where the pea is hiding! To make it harder, try stacking 2 or 3 pillows together.
     • When they find the pea, let them hide it under a pillow for the next person to find.

• Princess & the Pea Lunch … it just makes lunch more fun
  1. Mattress sandwich = layer bread, PB, bread, jelly, repeat.
     • We topped our mattress sandwich with a green M&M “pea”
  2. Frozen Peas
  3. Cheese cut with P cookie cutters. I have ones similar to these here.