The seafront is (still) just around the corner, and I find a bracing walk (it gets freezing when the East wind blows from the North Sea!) or gentle stroll when the weather is warmer, is great for clearing my head and mulling over story ideas.

Pirate pom pom challenge mats provide an opportunity for preschoolers to strengthen hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.

There are different ways to sequence a story, but one of the most common is to start at the beginning and move chronologically through the events.

Ben Cort's illustrations are fun and colourful, perfectly capturing Claire Freedman's words and help children engage with the story. Could you make a new book in the ‘Underpants’ series? What else might love underpants? Could you write a rhyming story about them?

Make a story map showing the places mentioned in the story and labelled to show the things that happened there. I'm sure preschoolers will find this hilarious though they may not understand all of the word play. Watch this trailer for the book. Could you make your own animation to retell the story or to advertise the book?

These free preschool printables are great any time of year, but they’re especially fun in the days leading up to Talk Like a Pirate Day or used within your ocean-themed lesson plans. What is story sequencing? Sky Kids offers families 11 kids channels and over 5000 episodes of on demand viewing as well as the Sky Kids app, a safe space for younger kids focussed content, games and art tools with parental controls including a sleep mode so parents can moderate screen time. This is complemented by the pin protected Safe Mode on Sky Q, so there’s no danger of children straying into any areas of content that are not right for them. How I Became a Pirate– A young boy named Jeremy joins Captain Braid Beard and learns the finer points of living a pirate life. If you choose to use the activity as seat work, kids can sequence the story as you read it aloud or share the video above.

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If your kids are looking for some new books to read, why not give them something that’s both educational and entertaining? I live on the Essex coast in a lovely two-bed-roomed flat, which I share with my husband, Michael. At long last I have an office to write in, with room for all my books and bits of scribbled on papers. Elastic is mentioned in the story a number of times. Can you plan and carry out an experiment to test the strength / elasticity of different pieces of elastic?