Author Archives: Teacher Mom

Creating a Virtual Disney World at Home

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Buddy and I love Disney World. We love to watch YouTube videos of rides and planning our next trip. I saw a couple different families post about doing a virtual trip at their home while Disney World is closed. And since I am looking for new things to keep Buddy entertained at home, I decided to make a Disney World of my own.

*Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I decided to do all four parks in four different rooms of my house. The signs for every park included an image to scan the magic band and fingerprint to enter. Then I had three different rides/activities for each park. I went through all of Buddy’s toys to find things to set up things to enhance the ride atmosphere. I looked for different ways to add movement while Buddy watched the rides on You Tube. Here are the things we did at each park.

Character Breakfast: I found some Disney characters and set them up for breakfast. I pulled out our Mickey Waffle maker as well, although Buddy opted to have his normal Saturday breakfast of mini muffins instead.

Epcot: Buddy is super excited to go on Soarin. I put his Mickey airplane toy by our power recliner couch. We watched the ride on TV, and I made the recliner go up and down to simulate flight. I set up a bunch of underwater creatures to be the Nemo ride. And we watched the Gran Fiesta Tour on his little arm chair.

Animal Kingdom: I hid Buddy’s little zoo animals around the room, and we used some pretend binoculars to find them. Buddy pretended to drive the jeep, and we walked around the room and looked for the animals. Then he bounced on an ottoman while we watched the Dinosaur ride. And we also searched for dinosaur bones in black beans in the Boneyard.

Hollywood Studios: I set up a bunch of Toy Story toys to be Toy Story Land. I got an empty toy water gun and set up my laptop with a desk chair for Toy Story Mania. Every time the ride turned, I spun the desk chair around. Then we did Slinky Dog Dash on an exercise ball. And then we did Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway with Buddy in a laundry basket, and I pushed him around.

Magic Kingdom: I set up Buddy’s Around the World Duplo set to be It’s a Small World, and then I pushed him around on a desk chair. We went into his rocket tent with a flashlight to do Buzz Lightyear’s Ranger Spin, and he tried to shoot the targets on the video with his flashlight. And then we did Seven Dwarfs Mine Train with Buddy in a laundry basket.

Our final activity was lunch at the T-Rex cafe. I put a bunch of dinosaurs on and around the dining room table. This area was also part of Dinoland USA in terms of the decorating in our house, even though the real T-Rex cafe is at Disney Springs. I used a dinosaur sandwich cookie cutter for his sandwich and he drank out of the refillable cup we got at the real T-Rex cafe. This was Buddy’s favorite part of Disney World, and the only part of the experience that wasn’t taken down by the end of the day.

I’m attaching my printable in case anyone else is inspired to create a Disney World at their own home. Do you have any other fun activities to do with a four year old at home? Please share your ideas in the comments section.

Disney-World-SignsDownload

COVID Homeschool Preschool Schedule

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Thousands of schools across the country have switched to e-learning this week, to help reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus. And many parents, like me, are having to find ways to work at home while caring for their child. It’s a huge transition for my whole family, and I knew it was important for Buddy and I to have a schedule for our day.

I made this schedule and am sharing it in case it is useful to you and your family. I included pictures since Buddy can’t read to help him understand the different parts to our day. Hopefully having a visual schedule will help Buddy understand when I can play and when I’ll be busy. I have included the word file below so you can adapt it for your family’s needs.

For our reading and learning time in the morning, I am planning to read a book and do a related activity. I have a koala crate subscription, and we already have some books and projects available. Also, I am planning to use some of the books we already own along with these virtual field trips. (Links to trip ideas here and here.) I am hoping to work with Buddy to make a report of our activities to share with my husband at the end of the day. I’m sure we will also revisit some of our Time to Read Tuesday activities from summers in the past.

In the afternoon, I plan to pull out play doh, kinetic sand, our bean or rice sensory bins, do an art project, or bake. Some of my favorite sensory play activities can be found here.

I hope this is helpful to anyone else who will be home with their kids during the next few weeks. If you have any other resources to share, please share in the comments.

Homeschool-Daily-Schedule WordDownload
Homeschool Daily Schedule PDFDownload

Airplane Activities for a Four Year Old

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Airplane Activities for a Four Year Old

My family flies a lot because my husband works for an airline. And he was working abroad last summer, so Buddy and I flew together a couple times to see him. It was our first experience flying just the two of us, and overall, we both had a good time.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

Before our first flight, I had purchased this Wildkin rolling suitcase for Buddy. Since we were traveling by ourselves, I needed him to pull his own toys. Buddy loved this suitcase and was happy to pull it. It fit underneath the seat, and it holds a lot! I highly recommend it.

Because our trip consisted of two long flights followed by a week in a hotel room, I wanted to bring a variety of activities. I put together a few busy bags, some games, some books, and some small toys for Buddy. Some of these were things we had, and I got some new things for the trip too. Here are the things we brought with us.

Toys

Books

Other Items

  • Kindle and headphones
  • Empty waterbottle – we always fill after we go through security and before we get on the plane
  • Snacks – fruit snacks, Ritz bits, and animal crackers are Buddy’s current favorites. I usually throw in a couple suckers too.
  • Bag of clothespin, popsicle sticks, and pipecleaners- This kept Buddy busy for awhile. See picture below.
  • Post it notes and pen – I’m not sure why Buddy is more interested in writing with a pen than a marker or crayon, but he is.

I found all of these items to be very helpful in entertaining Buddy on the flight and at the hotel. Although Buddy was content to watch his Kindle for long periods of time, it was nice to have other things to keep him busy when we were ready for a screen time break.

Airplanes and Clouds Sensory Play

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This has been a crazy and stressful school year for me, and as a result, I haven’t been blogging much. I’ve missed it, and I’m going to try to do more blog posts in 2020.

This activity is one Buddy and I did last summer, but I haven’t gotten around to blogging about it yet. I first saw the idea for an airplane sensory tub on Fun with Mama’s blog. Buddy loves airplanes, so I knew this would be a good activity for him.

I got the activity ready by getting a travel sized can of shaving cream and the lid to our sensory bin for the clouds. I also used a silver Sharpie, a ruler, and a black piece of construction paper to make a runway. Buddy has a bunch of planes, but we chose to use the metal ones from the dollar store for this activity. That way, if they got wrecked, they would be easy to replace. (They didn’t get wrecked though, which is a great thing.)

I showed Buddy how to make some shaving cream clouds on the lid. Then I let him have a try. Buddy isn’t always a kid that enjoys messy activities, so he was a little nervous about the shaving cream. But he quickly decided the foam was really fun.

Buddy and I flew the planes off the runway and into the shaving cream clouds. They quickly got very messy, but it was a lot of fun.

After a few runs, I got a tub of water and a sponge to wash the planes down. Buddy loved playing with the planes in the water as much as the foam.

Once the big piles of foam had been smashed down a bit, it was easier for the planes to fly “through the clouds” without it being such a mess. Then Buddy happily made them fly back and forth in the foam with the occasional trip to either the plane wash or the runway.

This activity was a huge hit with Buddy. He asked to keep the runway, and he still uses it from time to time when he plays with planes.

Waiting Activities for Kids at Disney

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Buddy and I both love Disney World, and we were lucky enough to be able to take a quick trip with our extended family in August. All of Buddy’s cousins came, which meant our group had a total of 5 kids – ages 2, 4, 5, 5, and 7. I spent a good amount of time planning for keeping our kids busy while they were waiting at Disney World.

Disney Busy Bags

Before we left, Buddy and I went to the party store, the dollar store, and the grocery store looking for cheap toys to play with at Disney. I splurged on one larger toy per child. For the three girls, I got a small princess doll. I got a Woody doll for Buddy’s oldest cousin, and Buddy desperately wanted a dragon stuffed toy. (It was actually a keychain and I cut that part off so it was just a tiny stuffed animal.)

Buddy and I got a bunch of smaller toys to play with in lines. I put them in groups of similar typed items, and then I put each group in a bag. The groups were: things for fingers (skateboards/light up rings), pretend play (fairy wands and pirate spy glasses), and rubiks cubes. I also made bags with papers, coloring supplies, and stickers for times that we were sitting and waiting for a show or at a restaurant.

Here is a close up of the coloring supplies bags. I put them in quart size ziplocks to be easy to open and close. The girls had a spiral notebook and pen from the party store. Then I split a set of princess stickers and a princess crayon set from the dollar store. The boys had a spiral notebook, marker, and ruler set from the party store, and then they split Lion King crayons. I found a ton of Disney stickers around the house, and I put them in the bags along with tiny coloring/activity books from the party store. The spiral notebooks were the biggest hit and several of the kids used them as autograph books.

When we were in a long line, waiting for a show, or the kids were about to melt down, I’d pull out one of the bags. They were great distractions, and helped to enhance the Disney magic. I also brought a bag of glow wands, which were great entertainment at night.

Buddy was excited to have his dragon Cinder meet all of the princesses.

Other Waiting Activities

  • Read a picture book – We did this at rope drop! It would also be great for waiting for a show.
  • Play I Spy – Buddy and I take turns picking an object, saying its color, and then the other person has to guess which item it is.
  • Play The Animal Game – I taught this one to Buddy earlier in the summer and we play it all the time! One person thinks of an animal, and the other person asks yes or no questions until they guess the animal. This was a hit with our group.
  • Play The Color Game – Choose a color, and count how many things you can find with that color.
  • Look at a map – Buddy loves looking at maps, and there are many of these available as you enter each part.
  • Look for Hidden Mickeys
  • Blow Bubbles
  • Play Simon Says
  • Put on sunscreen
  • Have a snack
Buddy’s reading a map of Magic Kingdom while we were waiting at our hotel.

It wasn’t easy to keep a large group of little kids entertained while waiting in Disney lines. And there were definitely tears and meltdowns. But for the most part, having a plan for keeping the kids busy in lines made our trip much more fun.

Cloud Dough Construction Play

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Buddy announced last weekend he wanted to “do an activity”, which is his way of saying he wanted to try something a little different. After talking through some ideas, we decided to pull out our cloud dough. We did our digging for dinosaurs activity with cloud dough about a year ago, and we haven’t done it since then.

Buddy doing our cloud dough dinosaur dig in 2018.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

The recipe for cloud dough is a 8:1 mixture of flour to oil. Originally, I made a batch with four cups of flour and a half cup of canola oil, and then I added a little bit more oil. I saved it in a Tupperware container, and a year later it was still the same texture! It was amazing! I decided to add another 2 cups of flour and 1/4 cup oil to give Buddy a little more cloud dough to play with.

I put the cloud dough in a 9×13 glass pan. Buddy asked to help bury the dinosaurs, and then he dug them out. He used a small spoon to dig and a small paint brush to brush them off. He had a lot of fun, but I was thinking of new things to do with the cloud dough.

Buddy still loves doing his construction site sensory bin, so I thought it’d be fun to put the CAT mini trucks into the cloud dough. Those trucks made the cloud dough so much fun! Buddy had the best time putting cloud dough into the dump truck and having his T-Rex drive it around.

I also pulled out a Dixie cup and helped Buddy make some sandcastles. The bulldozer and backhoe had a lot of fun knocking them down. Then we would make more sandcastles and start over again.

The cloud dough was so much fun, and I’m glad I pulled it out. It made a huge mess, but it was worth it. (I needed to clean my kitchen anyway.) Looking back at the pictures from our cloud dough activity last year, I wish I had thought to put Buddy in his apron, like I did then! He needed an outfit change when this activity was done (and I did too!) But we had a lot of fun together for an hour. It’s always great to do something special with materials I already have at my house.

DIY Sidewalk Chalk Paint

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Buddy’s always enjoyed drawing pictures with sidewalk chalk. Now that he’s a little older, I thought this summer was a great time to try a variation on traditional sidewalk chalk. So when I saw the idea for sidewalk chalk paint on The Kitchen Table’s Classroom’s blog, I was excited to try it.

The recipe calls for a 1:1 ratio of cornstarch to water, with food coloring added as needed. So we started with two tablespoons of cornstarch, a little food coloring, and then two tablespoons of water. Buddy tried to stir the mixture, but it was very firm. So we added more water until it was a nice liquid consistency. It was a fun little science experiment before we got to the art activity.

Once we were all ready to paint, we grabbed two paintbrushes and headed outside. We both had a blast painting on our driveway! After the paint dried, it really did look like sidewalk chalk. And when we were all done, it washed away as easily as sidewalk chalk too. It was a fun and easy activity, and I’m sure we’ll try it again next summer.

Do you have any other fun, outdoor activities for kids? Share your ideas in the comments section.

Hotel Fun with a Preschooler

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My husband is working in Colombia this summer, so Buddy and I took two different week long trips there. We spent time every day sightseeing, but we still had a long amount of time in the hotel. Here’s a list of some of the things we did to have fun while in the hotel room.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

Build Something

On our first trip, I brought train tracks, duplos, and these duplo train track pieces, which were a new surprise for Buddy. He had a blast constructing different arrangements with the blocks and tracks. It was a great way to make well loved toys feel like new. We also brought magnatiles with us on both trips.

Washi Tape Roads and Bridges

Buddy and I used washi tape to make roads and folded construction paper to make bridges. I intended for it to be for Buddy’s cars, but he wanted to use it as a runway for his planes instead. (Read more about this activity here.)

Coloring and Activity Books

I bought some new coloring books from the dollar store before this trip. Buddy especially loves the puzzles and activities in them. I also purchased some dry erase activity books from Usborne, which is what is pictured above. (We got the dinosaur wipe clean book and the big activity book.)

Play Games

Buddy loves to play games, so of course we always bring them when we travel. I bought a book of 5 board games (Spin and Play Counting Games) to bring with us on this trip. This book was awesome because it had two dice as spinners in the spine, and it was great practice with adding, counting, and reading numbers. Buddy also brought his favorite game, Sequence for Kids, which I packed in a gallon ziplock. We also brought travel bingo, Toy Story Uno, Cars and Trucks card game, and Disney Eye Found It (which we call the Mickey game).

Draw on the Windows

I brought washable dry erase markers for Buddy’s activity books, and we used them to make pictures on the windows. We looked outside and drew the things we saw. Buddy loved this so much that we did it multiple times on both trips! (Read more about this activity here.)

Read Books

Buddy loves to read, and we brought a bunch of books with us. Sometimes we would take the whole pile and cuddle up in bed and read. Hotel beds are so cozy and comfortable for reading.

Play with a Balloon

I meant to bring one from home, but I forgot. Fortunately we were staying at the most amazing hotel that gave Buddy two different balloons during long waits in the lobby. This one kept Buddy entertained for a very long time. We just hit it back and forth all over the place.

Make a Fort

Buddy made a fort on his own when I was in the bathroom. This is how I found him!

Put Together Puzzles

I bought a couple puzzles from the dollar store to put together in the hotel. I also got this nicer one, which was magnetic and had two different puzzles. The magnetic one was also great for doing on the plane.

Play Mats

Before our second trip, I decided to bring printed train mats and Thomas mini trains. Buddy loved having wooden train tracks with us on our first trip, but the printouts were much easier to bring and he was just as happy.

I was worried before our trip that I would feel cooped up in the hotel room, but Buddy and I had a lot of fun! By the end of our time there, it began to feel like home.

Animal Alphabet Sensory Bin

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Buddy has always loved sensory bins, and it had been awhile since we’ve done one. So when I saw the idea for a sensory bin with animals and letters on Happy Toddler Playtime’s blog, I was excited to do it. I was especially excited that I already had all of the necessary materials: black beans, animals, and magnetic letters.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I started by pulling out some of Buddy’s small animals. Some of them were from this Jungle Animal Toob, and some were from a farm set from the dollar store. Once I had pulled out the animals I wanted to use, I found the capital and lowercase letter for each animal. My letters are from this magnetic letter set. I decided to use upper and lowercase letters to give Buddy a chance to match both types of letters.

When I made the sensory bin, I buried all the animals and letters in black beans. This activity would have also been great in a rice bin, but I think black beans are easier to clean up. I told Buddy he had to find all of the animals and feed them with both the upper and lowercase letter that matches the first letter of the animal’s name.

Buddy had a great time digging in the beans and finding the letters. He didn’t have any trouble figuring out which letter each animal needed to eat. Buddy did have a little difficulty with the difference between C and S and lowercase p, b, and d. I was glad to give him a chance to practice these letters in a fun way.

After we finished with the letters and animals, Buddy asked me to pull out his mini construction trucks. Two years later, the construction sensory bin remains his favorite! (Read more about it here.) He did add a couple of the animals to help him drive the trucks.

Buddy played in the animal alphabet sensory bin and then the construction bin for almost two hours!! And then, he only stopped because it was time for dinner. It was a really great way to practice letters and have a lot of fun.

Do you have any other fun sensory bin ideas? Please share in the comments.

Portable Train Tracks Busy Bag

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Buddy loves playing with trains and setting up train tracks. When I saw the idea of a portable train set on Play Train’s blog, I knew it’d be perfect for our upcoming trip. We were planning to spend a lot of time on airplanes, and portable train tracks sounded like a great way to keep Buddy busy.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I started by getting a handful of jumbo craft sticks, a sharpie, and a ruler. Then, I drew the train tracks on the sticks, and I used the ruler to make my lines nice and straight. I decided to make 10 sticks so Buddy would have a lot of different options when setting up the tracks. Once the tracks were finished, I added three of Buddy’s mini trains. The portable train set on Play Train’s blog included felt background pieces and pipe cleaner trees. However, when I asked Buddy about making these, he wasn’t interested.

Buddy was very excited when I offered to pull out his portable train set on the plane. We set up two squares with 8 of the sticks, and then we added a couple extra lines of track. Buddy had a lot of fun making his trains go around the track.

We did have a slight problem because the popsicle sticks slid around a bit on the tray table. Before our next trip, I’ll add a piece of felt to go under it to help make it more stable. Otherwise, it was a great activity that kept Buddy busy on a long flight.

Do you have any other busy bag ideas for our next trip? If so, please share your ideas in the comment section.