X Marks The Spot Tuff Spot

We are coming to the end of our Tuff Spot A-Z Challenge and the letters are certainly becoming tricky. Today’s letter X caused some issues but we finally decided on X Marks The Spot Tuff Spot.

Our Tuff Spot activity stemmed from buying a Pirate Party Treat Ship (affiliate link). I wanted to create a ‘clean’ sensory play activity where Adam could use the Pirate Ship. Luckily the weather was perfect so we took our Tuff Spot and Tuff Spot Stand outside.

To create our treasure map Tuff Spot I used two sensory materials. I recycled the rice and rice krispies concoction from our Underground Cave Tuff Spot to create the islands. To represent the sea I painted a large bag of pasta, using our usual zip-loc bag method.

I wanted Adam to dig for treasure but in particular I wanted him to dig for the letter X. I re-used our pirate coins from our Coin Drop activity and wrote the letter X on the majority of the coins. On the rest of the coins I wrote the letters of Adam’s name and the numbers 1-5. This was to ensure that Adam looked carefully on each coin to find the X’s. The Pirate Ship also came with some numbered stickers so I laminated them and buried them along with the coins.

To complete the treasure map Tuff Spot I added shells, an octupus toy and the letter X from Alphablocks.

After waiting patiently for the Tuff Spot to be set up Adam dived straight into digging up the treasure. He saw the Alplablock X and realised that he needed to find coins marked with an X as these were the treasure. The first coin he discovered was the letter A. He turned to me and said “A money. No X money” and threw it into the water! The next coin he found was the letter X and he put it into the Pirate Ship. He jumped for joy when he discovered there were numbers hidden as well.

Finding all the coins and numbers didn’t take long but Adam went and hid them all again himself. After he had dug the coins up for a second time Adam had a wonderful time mixing the sensory materials together and pushing the Pirate Ship around the Tuff Spot. A fantastic Tuff Spot in wonderful weather!

If you are wanting free printables for your X Marks The Spot activity or want to extend the activity so your child looks for words with the letter X in then look no further than In The Playroom. They have a fantastic post and printable resources for a X Word and Letter Treasure Hunt.

Equipment (with affiliate links):

* Blue Tuff Spot

* Tuff Spot Stand – read our review here

* Pirate Party Treat Ship

* Pasta, blue paint and zip-loc bag

* Rice Krispies and brown painted rice blended together

* Pirate coins with the letter X written on using Permanent Marker pen