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Easy St. Patrick’s Day Clover Snacks

March 16, 2017

I am thrilled to share this easy peasy snack perfect for St. Patrick’s day and “cooking” with young children. We started these at 7 pm and had the girls in bed by 7:15. Seriously. That’s how fast they are! I had seen the recipe on one of my favorite money saving blogs, hip2save.com and was so excited to try it. Lina had used Rolos, but I decided to use Hershey kisses since I think they are typically more toddler friendly. I am a total sucker for salty and sweet snacks.

Start by preheating your oven to 250 degrees. My 3 year old, Aniston helped me assemble them. We laid the pretzels in a clover shape on a piece of parchment paper that I had stretched over a cookie sheet.

We were able to fit 8 clovers on each cookie sheet. You could maybe get a couple more on there.

Then I had Aniston place a Hershey’s kiss in the middle of the clover. I made sure the kiss was touching each piece.

CAREFULLY slide them into the oven. I moved a little too quickly and had to reassemble some of them. Let them bake for about 2-3 minutes…. long enough for the chocolate to get soft but not melt completely.

While they were in the oven, I dumped some M&M’s on the counter and let Aniston get moving on sorting the green ones out. After a couple of minutes, gently press the upside-down M&M in the center of the chocolate.

Next, we slid the whole pan into the freezer for about 10 minutes. You can pull up the parchment papers a little on the ends for an easy removal. I transferred them to some plastic containers and they are ready to go for tomorrow.

TIP – I’m storing them in the refrigerator. If they get too warm, the chocolate will melt and they will start to fall apart.

Aniston was so proud! She can’t wait to pass these out on St. Patrick’s Day. The teacher in me is thinking this would be a really easy snack for my students!

Let me know how these go over with your students or kids!

Looking for more St. Patrick’s Day ideas?
Head over here!
St. Patrick’s Day Twirlers & So Much More!

St. Patrick’s Day Twirlers and More!

March 3, 2017

Click on the cover above to grab one!

Since becoming a TPT author, I have fallen in love with all the holidays again! My kids were so excited to make “Rainbow Twirlers” with this craftivity. When I showed them the sample, there was a collective “Oooohing and ahhhing” . 🙂

The resource has many writing prompts. For our hallway display, I gave them a choice of starting with the prompt “At the end of my rainbow…” or “If I found a pot of gold…” The kids loved having a choice and they got right to work. I loved their answers!

(At the end of my rainbow I would find chocolate and 50,000 rings.)

(At the end of my rainbow I will find a pot of gold.)

(At the end of my rainbow, I’d find 10 million coins and a trophy.)

(If I found a pot of gold I would buy a dog.)

LOVED this one from an ESL student!

I am so very proud of my kids. Sometimes it feels like the progress is so slow, but if you compare this writing to the beginning of the year, you would be blown away!

We spread the craft over 3 days. I let Aniston help me with the sample first at home. We used watercolor paints and I told her to paint a rainbow pattern. I laughed when my 2 year old corrected me and told me red was first in the rainbow!

I forgot to take pictures when my kids were working on this in the classroom, but I’m pretty sure you get the idea. It was a little messy, but easily cleaned with a Clorox wipe. I had them paint one side and wait a while before flipping it to paint the other side. I wasn’t picky at all about the patterns they made. Some painted swirls and others used completely random colors.

My awesome assistant Mel cut the plates into a swirl pattern using a die cut. You could do this by hand if needed.

The next day I let the kids choose one of the 2 pots in my resource to color and cut out. Mel added glitter to them and then we attached the rainbows. The kids were so proud of them!

I LOVED how the hallway display turned out!

There are lots of other fun printables included in the resource. The kids loved the “Following Directions” coloring sheet. It was nice to hear them help each other read the directions.

The resource also includes some math activities and more crafts. I can’t wait to use them with my kids. Grab one for your students to make planning so much easier by clicking one of the pictures below!

Let me know how this goes in your classroom! I would love to see pictures!

Foam Shape Painting – Fun Toddler Activity

March 1, 2017

I’m so excited to share one of my favorite things to do with Aniston with other moms. Juggling an infant and a toddler can be rough some days and I had been searching for various things to keep Aniston occupied while I put Heidi down for a nap or when I was breastfeeding. (There is NOTHING that makes you feel more helpless then when you are breastfeeding and your toddler needs you!)

Anyways, I stumbled across several blog posts about using water to “paint” foam shapes on to the window and was so intrigued. I had some colorful foam sheets so I cut them into various shapes and put a little bit of water in a plastic cup. (If you don’t have any – you can pick them up at the dollar tree or any craft store. You can also buy pre-cut shapes if you prefer. Make sure to get the non-adhesive kind. You can find a tub of around 3000 pre-cut nonadheasive shapes in this Amazon link.)

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I sat down by Aniston and handed her a paintbrush. She was barely over the age of 2 so I would say, “Make it sticky-sticky!” Then I would demonstrate how you could paint the back of the shape with water and it “magically” sticks to the window. She was amazed!

After a little bit of practice with her, she could do it by herself. I loved keeping the supplies in a tub to pull out when Heidi needed me and Aniston needed to be busy.

This has also become a favorite activity for us to pull out when Aniston has friends over. Mainly because the clean up is minimal and it keeps kids entertained for a long time! Aniston has a bit of a crush on our friends’ son, Cole. (As you can see in the picture:)) Aren’t they the cutest?!?!

When he and his sister, Reese came over, they loved painting the shapes. Cole cut out new shapes and Reese and Aniston stuck them on the window.

I was so impressed with how pretty the window looked when they finished and they had the best day together!

We’ve also painted shapes with Aniston’s cousins, Rex and Micah. They are two very busy boys but this kept them occupied for a pretty good amount of time. Rex had a different idea about how to get the shapes on the window. He told me to paint the window and then he stuck the shapes on top. 🙂 Either way works great!

One more little tip – if you are working on this activity with little ones, make sure the pieces don’t get cut too small since this can be a choking hazard. I’ve had to rush around a few times picking up the tiny ones before Heidi can get to them.

I’m looking forward to letting my kindergarten students paint words on the window using the precut foam letters. I know they would love that. I’ve also been thinking of some shape recognition practice. There are so many ways to have fun with this. Let me know how this project goes for you!

Sunglasses Craftivity – My Future is so Bright I Need Shades!

February 28, 2017

NEW SUNGLASSES CRAFTIVITY

(Click resource cover above to grab one!)

I love this craft so much! When I pull out the sample, the kids are completely mesmerized and can’t wait to dig in. My sample of the girl with the crazy hair looks like this:

I wanted to make a sample for a bulletin board titled “Sunshine & Summertime” or “Sunny Days Ahead!” that could be used at the end of the year.

I included several writing templates that could be used for various bulletin boards in my resource on TPT. The basic idea is to have the kids draw what they will “see” in the summer or in their future on the sunglasses depending on what you want the end product to be. I have included a template to make these large glasses and the lens in the resource on TPT.

We completed the craft in February so I didn’t want my kids to focus on the summer. Instead, I told them that I wanted them to think about the future. You could ask your students to focus on the next year, when they are in college, future career goals, etc. My students thought about what they hope to be one day.

I started all of my K students with the prompt, “My future is so bright I need to wear shades!” Then they were supposed to write about their future. They came up with the cutest responses, such as “I want to be a doctor and a dad.” or “I want to be a mermaid and a princess.” I love how their minds work at this age!

I even had one who was totally set on being the person who stands in front of the people who get married. That’s what she kept telling me anyways. “I want to be the person who stands in front of them when they get married Mrs. Statum!” “Hmm… Like a minister?” I asked her. “The person who stands in front!” We finally decided on calling it a wedding officiant. 🙂

I let my students start this craft by passing out a pair of lens to each child. I wanted them to focus on that drawing first. I told them to draw a picture of what they saw in their future. (If you are doing the summertime craft, you will need to have them think about what they will see that summer.)

The next day we used the template from my resource on TPT to make sunglasses. The kids loved “designing” their own pair of shades.

They then glued the lenses on top and got to work creating their person. We love using construction paper to “style” their hair! How cute are they?!?!

We had so much fun with this. The kids were SO proud of them and their writing has never been more inspired!

This project makes for an adorable hallway display when you add the writing assignment. (And my assistent Mel made the CUTEST sign for the hallway!) Please let me know how this goes in your classroom!

I hope your kids love it as much as mine did!

Disney World – Toddler and Infant Tips & Tricks

February 15, 2017

I know some people may think we were a little crazy to take 2 children to Disney World before either turned 3, but we had an awesome time and I wanted to share our experience and some things we learned along the way for any parents considering the same. 🙂

The main reason we decided to go at this time was so we could take advantage of the military discount that my brother-in-law was able to get for us. This meant staying at Shades of Green and half price 5 day park hopper tickets. If you are wanting to know other ways to save money, click here! http://pencilstopigtails.com/disney-world-10-tips-and-tricks-to-save-tons-of/

Aniston was 1 month away from turning 3 and Heidi was 10 months old when we arrived. That meant that I only had to purchase a plane ticket for Aniston and Heidi could fly free as a lap child. In addition, I only had to buy Disney World tickets for Dustin and I – that alone saved us a ton of money. (Kids are free until the age of 3!)

Seeing Disney through a toddler’s eyes was totally worth it. I’m so glad that we got to take Aniston at such a young age. She was fascinated by everything. Heidi was very easy to take care of as she was so intrigued by the rides and entertainment. Since she is in the crawling stage, the hardest part for her was that she was ready to get on the floor for some crawling time and there weren’t too many places to do that.

Here are some recommendations if you are taking young children to Disney World.

Bring your own snacks, drinks, and even lunch or breakfast in if you would like. Snacks can go a long way in helping your children wait in line. Not to mention it will save you money. I was pretty surprised when I was planning our trip to hear that you could bring in all kinds of outside snacks. Our favorites were the organic fruit/vegetable pouches. Both Heidi and Aniston love those. They are super convenient and healthy! We didn’t get around to it, but you could easily make pb&j sandwiches. Bananas, apples, and oranges were really popular with our crowd. Capri-suns and crackers are good choices. You can bring in a small soft sided cooler if you want to keep things cold. On a side note, Heidi has a milk and egg allergy. Because of this, I also don’t eat any milk or egg and since I’m vegetarian, this means I’m vegan while I’m still breastfeeding. I was super impressed with the way allergies were handled at Disney. Every employee was so helpful. They quickly pulled out allergy information and they always called over an “allergy coordinator” since our family was dealing with a “double allergy”. Every coordinator went above and beyond checking every little ingredient for milk/egg and creating a meal that was perfect for us. I have never been treated so fantastic when it comes to dealing with allergies. Allergy mamas know that we often get looked at like we have 3 heads when we start to question each ingredient at a regular restaurant!
Bring along some kid friendly cups because you can ask for FREE water at the quick service restaurants! (They will give you a cup, I just think its easier to transfer to a sippy cup for younger kids.)
Bring or rent a stroller. This is totally up to you, but we brought our stroller from home to save money. Even if your toddler doesn’t normally use one anymore, they will definitely need a break at Disney. We could have used a double stroller at times but got away with a single. You can rent them in the parks although I was eyeing the ones from “Kingdom Strollers”. I had read good things about them and they looked really nice.
Bring a carrier of some sort for infants. I LOVE the TULA brand. That is my personal favorite and I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to wraps and carriers. I love wraps but Heidi is way to big to ride around in one of those now. Something about the TULA is so comfortable. Many babies would prefer facing out though so take that into consideration. Heidi took every single nap in the TULA on me. (I got quite the workout in at Disney!)
Get souvenirs beforehand. As I shared in another post, I snagged all kinds of goodies at the Dollar Tree. You can give them to toddlers each night from Tinkerbell or Mickey Mouse which works nicely as good behavior incentives. The glow-in-the-dark wands, bubbles, and puzzles were some of our favorite finds. This will help you save money in the parks as well! I also ordered the girls matching Minnie Mouse outfits online before we left and autograph books from Amazon for meeting the characters.
Purchase Memory Maker! – We were so happy that we purchased this and the price can be split between families if you are travelling with or even at the same time as another group. It was so nice to have professional pictures taken at every character greet of our kids and really great to have so many photos of our entire group without having to ask random strangers to take one. I’ve been very pleased with all the photos. Always fun to see your ride photos too!I really love this picture that a photographer snapped of my sister and her son. Its so much fun to look through your pictures later. Parents already have so much to juggle with young kids that it was so nice to have someone else in charge of pictures!
Make plans for which rides or experiences are “musts” for your kids and make those a priority. It was really great that Baby Heidi could ride on almost every single ride that Aniston could. You can see how young children can usually ride in your lap!
The only one I didn’t take Baby Heidi on that I did Aniston was the Barnstormer. There are a ton of rides at Magic Kingdom for toddlers. We loved the shows at Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. My favorite ride for toddlers was the new Frozen ride at Epcot. So… it would be really important to consider your children’s interests when planning which parks to visit if you aren’t able to make it to each one. I would say that my very favorite thing we did all week was the Enchanted Tales with Belle experience. Both Aniston and Dustin were included as part of the show. Belle was so beautiful and even I was a little awe-struck! I won’t spoil it too much but the special effects they used to bring the story to life were amazing!

If you are a fan of the movie- don’t miss this one!

8. Take breaks as needed. It can be really helpful to get to the parks at rope drop. (This means arriving about 30 minutes early.) Then go back to the hotel for a while to nap or relax and return at night. You would avoid the most crowded time of the day with this plan and it usually works well for young children. However, since both my girls go to bed by 7 we just stayed in the parks most days until around 5 or 6. We could tell that Aniston needed a break a couple of times so I stayed with Heidi and Dustin took Aniston back to the hotel to play on the playground and relax a bit.

I loved this pic of them leaving the parks when she was especially tired. 🙂

9. Go during the school year. I know, I know! I’m a teacher and should know better. If you are travelling with young children, hopefully they haven’t started school yet and this won’t matter. You pretty much have to go during the school year to be at the parks with the lowest crowd ratings. We travelled during the first week of February. The crowd rating was a 3/10. It was fabulous. There is no way I would ever want to go during the summer after having gone in February. The weather was perfect, lines were quick or sometimes there was no line at all, and it was so nice to break up the winter blues with the trip. We left on a Friday afternoon and returned Wednesday so I only missed 3 and 1/2 days of work.

10. If your child is at the right age, consider getting their first haircut done at the Harmony Barber Shop in Magic Kingdom. We had Heidi’s first haircut done there and are so glad we made that decision! It was such a special memory for all of us. You can read about it by clicking this link : http://pencilstopigtails.com/disney-world-babys-first-haircut-at-harmony-barber-shop/

Oh yeah! Check out the Baby Care Centers located in each park. I was so impressed by these. There were rooms for breastfeeding mothers, plenty of diaper changing stations, high chairs, microwaves, a movie playing for toddlers, a place to purchase baby necessities you may have forgotten, etc. We loved stopping in for a minute to give the kids a break and a quiet place for me to breastfeed!

Do you have any tips/tricks to share for Disney with toddlers or infants? Please share them in the comments!

President’s Day – Happy Birthday George Washington!

February 15, 2017

Happy Birthday George Washington!

I have just created a new resource for Presidents’ Day and I’m so happy to share it with you! You can grab one by clicking on the title above.

This is a preview of some of the fun things you will find in this resource.

I’ve always been a little bored with President’s Day so I wanted to spice things up a bit with my class by having a birthday party in his honor. Did you realize that the Federal Government refers to President’s Day as “Washington’s Birthday?” I didn’t until I started working on this resource. I thought that was very interesting.

We have had so much fun making George Washington hats. The kids loved creating curls with long strips of white paper to go around the sentence strip. They were so intrigued by the fact that Washington’s hair was not actually white. He used powder because back then the thought was that you looked more powerful with white hair and curls! 🙂

I loved the way they looked walking down the hall. 🙂

Our hallway display came out cute and it was super simple. The kids did all the work! The resource includes a “Happy Birthday Mr. Washington!” banner. Students enjoyed figuring out what they would give Washington for his birthday. They came up with the cutest ideas!

There are so many other fun activities that go along with President’s Day. We had fun sorting the hard and soft g sounds. I also used those printables to go over the different sounds with my Parent English class.

I read our class book several times and later let the kids color their individual nonfiction readers that are also included with this packet.

President’s Day was so much more fun this year. How do you celebrate it with your students?

Disney World – Baby’s First Haircut at Harmony Barber Shop

February 14, 2017

One of my very favorite things we did during our recent trip to Disney World was get Baby Heidi’s first haircut.

(If you are wondering why I often refer to her as “Baby Heidi”, its because we named her after my sister and it helps us avoid the confusion:))

I had called a couple days prior to try to get a reservation for her haircut at the Harmony Barber Shop in Magic Kingdom, but they were booked. I decided to try our luck anyways and am so glad we did. I waited until after she had her morning nap in the TULA carrier and we went in. The barber shop is kind of tucked in a corner on main street so most people would never even notice it. They took our names and sent us straight to Julie’s chair with no wait at all!

Julie was fabulous. She put stickers all over Heidi to keep her busy during the process.

She asked us exactly how we wanted her hair to be cut before beginning. To be honest, I was more excited about the tradition then I was about actually getting her hair cut, but it was getting in her eyes pretty bad and kind of crazy on the sides.

Julie had a spinning Minnie Mouse that she also used to distract Heidi.

The whole process took about 5 minutes. When she finished, they put a pair of Mickey Mouse ears on her embroidered with “Baby’s First Haircut” on the back. She held up a mirror so we could try to take a photo from the back and get Heidi’s face in it.

I love that you can see Dustin and I in the mirror on this one. Have you ever watched parents try to get a 10 month old to smile?!?!

Then Julie asked if she could sprinkle her with “Pixie Dust”. She pulled her hair up in a ponytail before adding the final touch.

She sprinkled some on Aniston as well.

Before we left they presented us with a certificate, a lock of Heidi’s hair in a little satchet with Pixie Dust, and the Mickey Mouse ears.

The total came to $25 and I tipped Julie on top of that.

I was thrilled! As the second baby, Heidi seems like she gets the leftovers, but what a special story to tell her that she received her first haircut in the Barber Shop in Magic Kingdom! I can’t recommend this “secret tradition” highly enough!

Disney World – 10 Tips and Tricks to Save Tons of $$$

February 13, 2017

We just returned from a 5 day/night trip to Disney World. 🙂 We essentially were able to cut our vacation costs in half and I wanted to share some of my favorite tips and tricks for saving $ with you!

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My number 1 tip is simple- go during the off season! Not only can you avoid super long lines, you can also enjoy mild weather. We went the first week in February and the weather was perfect. I took one long sleeved jacket for each family member and some leggings for me and the girls. That was all we needed. We wore the leggings or shorts and just removed the jackets mid-morning. While we were there the highs were in the 70’s and lows in the upper 50’s. In other words – PERFECT! If you are able to go during the off season you can find better deals on airfare, hotel deals, prices of food, and even some special add-on incentives. I checked crowd calendars online and we planned the trip to take advantage of a 3/10 rating on the crowd calendars. No matter when you go, there will still be a lot of people, but the lines were much shorter than usual, which was really nice since we had a toddler and an infant. (I will write another blog post soon about travelling to Dinsey with 2 littles!)
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Number 2 is to explore all of your available hotel options. Since my brother-in-law is in the military, we were able to stay at Shades of Green.

It is an on-site resort owned by the military and absolutely gorgeous! We stayed for only $149 a night and that included a huge and delicious buffet breakfast! I really loved the resort. I’ve read mixed reviews, but I can’t figure out why. We did stay in the renovated rooms. They are huge. (I’ve read they are the largest rooms on Disney property.) There are two beautiful pools, a splash park for kids, water slides, a playground for younger children, activities, and so much more. I loved that there was a store on-site for anything we might have forgotten at home. We didn’t need much but I spotted formula, tons of souvenirs, snacks, drinks, etc at really good prices. If you stay at Shades, you need to plan ahead to make sure you know how you will get to each park in the morning. You can use the buses which run every hour, drive your own vehicle, or walk across to the Polynesian resort and use their boat or monorail which run very frequently. We used the Polynesian system a lot and were very pleased with it. The Shades of Green bellmen will drive you in a golf cart to the edge of their property and are happy to pick you up again if you give them a call. Don’t forget to tip!

To save $, you can also stay at a value resort, Fort Wilderness or an off site resort. I’ve read a lot of good things about staying at nearby condos… so be sure to look into all of your options!
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The 3rd tip is to take snacks and drinks into the parks.

We had a backpack which we filled with a couple of waters, Capri-Suns, Organic fruit pouches for the baby, snacks for the kids, and you could even make PB&J sandwiches if you wanted. The snacks go a long way in keeping your children occupied and happy, especially when you are waiting in lines. I also took a couple of containers of bubbles, chapstick, hand sanitizer, diapers, and wipes. (Try not to pack too much because you don’t want to be loaded down and there is a limit on how big of a cooler/backpack you can bring. More on this in another post.)
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Number 4 is to check on discounted theme park tickets. Florida residents get a huge discount and military families also can. We had 5 day park hopper tickets for around $250 which is about half of the normal price.
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The 5th tip is to decide if and where you will eat BEFORE you hit the parks. If you are starving and rushing from ride to ride it is extremely tempting to grab a table at the first place you come to. This is NOT the way to save $! Look into the quick service restaurants. They live up to their names but are still a nice place to sit down and enjoy a tasty and relatively inexpensive meal. We decided to splurge once and eat at Be Our Guest.

I had read online that you needed reservations 180 days in advance but we were able to just show up during the lunch hour. We were in and out within an hour and a half. My husband’s eyes were a bit wide after he ordered the croque monsieur and a drink and I ordered a vegan lunch with a drink and our bill was just over $40, but we both agreed that the atmosphere was worth it and the lunch was delicious. Did I mention that I also ordered a sorbet? The $40 didn’t sound like too much after all. Everything was yummy! (So much so that my sister went back a few days later and ate the exact same meal that she had already eaten just because it was so tasty!) Anyways, I recommend doing a character meal at least once or splurging at some point during your stay on at least one good meal. We typically ate dinner after we returned from the parks and the meals at Shades of Green weren’t too expensive.
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Number 6 is to load up on souvenirs before you hit the park.

All of the Disney themed goodies above were at my local Dollar Tree. We referred to these as “Tinkerbell Gifts”. I told Aniston that Tinkerbell would leave her a gift each night if she was a good girl at the parks. (A little bribery never hurt anyone:)) Some of the things I found were “Magic Towels”, light-up wands and bracelets, coloring books, bubbles, dress-up dolls, water bottles, and sunglasses all with Disney characters on them. This kept Aniston from wanting every little toy she saw. We saved a ton of money this way.

In the parks, I did end up buying her a light up bubble machine, some sparkly Minnie Mouse ears, and a little striped tank top to remember her trip. They were around $20 a piece.

I bought Aniston an autograph book from Amazon for around $5 before we left. Many people love seeing how many characters you can get to autograph your book. Aniston was more interested in coloring in hers so we didn’t keep up with the characters too much with it. The characters will have pens or you can grab a cute one like the ones I pictured above at the Dollar Tree.

I bought the girls matching Minnie Mouse outfits with polka-dot pants online really inexpensively months before our trip. I can’t remember where they were from. It popped up when I was on Facebook. Anyways, if you know that you will be tempted to get a shirt, I recommend looking for some deals on Disney-inspired t-shirts on Jane.com. I saw a bunch of cute ones on there before we left.
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The 7th tip is to look into your options if you are considering taking your child to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. I’ve read that it can get very expensive and it definitely wasn’t worth it for me to take my 2 (almost 3) year old. We might consider it when she is older, but Shades of Green had a similar service which was much less expensive.
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We decided to get Baby Heidi’s first haircut at the Barber Shop in Magic Kingdom (for $25) and they sprinkled both girls with “Pixie Dust” for free!

Aniston was thrilled!

I also packed a couple of dress-up costumes from home in case Aniston asked to dress like a princess one day.

We ended up dressing her up like Minnie Mouse one day and she was cute as could be.

***If you are interested in getting your baby’s first haircut at Disney World – click here to learn all about our experience!*** http://pencilstopigtails.com/disney-world-babys-first-haircut-at-harmony-barber-shop/
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Number 8 is to make sure you explore transportation options. I found round-trip airfare from Nashville to Orlando for $100 including all taxes and fees! I was thrilled to find this and noticed that any of the winter months seemed to have the same good deals on airfare.

I was very careful to read about luggage charges and noticed that Frontier charged for every single bag whether it was checked or carry-on. (Each person could have a personal item that fit under the seat in front of them for free.) It’s actually more expensive to carry-on a small suitcase than it is if you checked the bag so be sure to read about potential hidden costs if you snag some cheap airfare. I was bound and determined to only pay $50 for our family of 4 to take one suitcase. Yes- you read that right. I brought along our largest suitcase and paid the $25 each way beforehand. That’s Aniston in the picture above sitting on our big suitcase and poor Baby Heidi looking exhausted in our stroller after we arrived. :)We took two backpacks and that was it. It actually wasn’t too hard. I laid out the outfits beforehand and since my girls are still so young, their clothes didn’t take up too much room. My sister got a kick out of the fact that even though I only had one suitcase, I managed to bring along bubbles. 🙂 I also realized that it would cost us around $90 round-trip to take a taxi from the airport to Shades of Green so I talked my sister into picking us up since she was driving her van to meet us at Shades of Green anyways. (I believe that all of the Disney resorts have a free bus system from the airport and to the parks, but be sure to check on that. Shades of Green was not included.)

You may not be able to find a killer deal on airfare so think about driving. Be sure to plan for how you will get to the parks each day and if you will have to pay for parking.
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Number 9 is don’t be scared to take young children. I was hesitant at first about whether it would be worth taking my two young daughters, but…. I’m so glad I did. Children can go to Disney World for FREE until their third birthday. That means I only had to buy theme park tickets for me and Dustin. You don’t have to buy a plane ticket for any children under the age of 2 which gives you even better savings. It was truly magical to see Disney through the eyes of my toddler and Baby Heidi was easy-peasy! Babies can ride along on any of the toddler rides and they are so fascinated by all of the people and lights that they are extra easy to take care of. (More on that in an upcoming blog post.)

I STRONGLY recommend bringing a stroller from home. It will help you immensely in the airport, you can check it at the gate for free, and then your child will feel so comfortable in it at the parks. Plus… you don’t have to pay to rent one! More savings!!! (Even if your child hasn’t used a stroller in a long time – they are likely to need one to make it through several days at the parks!)
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Finally…. number 10 I saved $60 easily with this little tip. Sometime in the weeks leading up to Christmas Target does a promotion for 10% off of Target Gift Cards. (With a red card you can get 5% off anytime during the year.) There is a cap of $300 per transaction. I ordered 2 of these using mine and Dustin’s email addresses… so I essentially got $600 in Target gift cards for $540. A few weeks later I went to Target and bought 12 $50 Disney gift cards.

I didn’t see them, but you may find $100 cards which would make things a little simpler.

*** You can no longer do this online. I had no problem doing this in store, but if you do I’ve read that you can head to a self checkout and it should go through.***

One night while I was watching TV, I transferred the gift cards to just 1 card so I didn’t have so many cards to keep up with. I wouldn’t recommend buying too many just in case this doesn’t work for you, but I had no problems whatsoever. Plus, I knew that I would eventually use $600 at Target if something did go wrong. All this goes to say that if you knew you would spend $2000 on your Disney resort, Memory Maker, etc, you could essentially save yourself $200 with this trick! One of those “the more you buy, the more you save” kind of deals.

One More Tip– I didn’t want to include it in the 10 because if you won’t be there long, it may not be worth the purchase. However, if you will be there for more than a day or 2, I strongly recommend purchasing Memory Maker. It is $149 if you purchase it at least 3 days prior to your trip. You can SPLIT THE COST with other families travelling with you or even with neighbors if you link up the accounts. There are professional photographers all over the parks who will take unlimited pictures that will automatically be uploaded to your “My Disney Experience” account. The system can also recognize your magic band if you are on a ride and send the photo straight to your Photo Pass. Later when you get home, you can simply download the ones that you wish to keep. It was priceless for us to have professional pictures taken of our entire family in the parks and meeting the characters. Sometimes you will find characters in the photos like the Tinkerbell flying in front of Epcot below.

7 Dwarfs Mine Train

Splash Mountain

And last but definitely not least… Be kind! Really! It can save you $$$! I had a restaurant manager tell me that my entire Vegan meal was on the house. This was at least a $15 savings. Cast members will sometimes throw in extras if you simply chat with them. You can get FREE ice water at any restaurant if you just ask politely. Look carefully and there will be at least one cast member handing out free buttons.

My sister grabbed two free “1st Visit” buttons for my girls to remember their trip. We had various cast members give the girls stickers and other fun little items.

Want to know more about our trip? Go here to learn about our baby’s first haircut

Disney World – Baby’s First Haircut at Harmony Barber Shop

Groundhog Day Fun (Continued)

February 1, 2017

We are still having so much fun with Groundhog Day. Today we reread the class book “Legend of the Groundhog”.

This book and all of the activities we did today are included in my bundle on TPT which you can grab here:

Groundhog Day Bundle – Crafts and Nonfiction Unit

The kids were THRILLED to hear that they would go outside and look for their shadows. We started with the prediction activity. Most of my students thought that they would see their shadow and they tended to agree with the legend that this meant there would be 6 more weeks of winter. We completed the bar graph as a class. I called each student’s name and we each colored in a box for the votes made. (You could do the bar graph before or after going outside.)

When we got outside the students were so excited to look at each of their shadows. I asked them some higher order thinking questions. “Why would the groundhog be scared of his own shadow?” They were on the right track when a couple answered that he might think it was a monster. I agreed with them that he was scared of something or someone, but NOT a monster. Another child piped up that he was scared of a predator. What impressive vocabulary for a kindergarten student!

There is something so sweet about this picture!

When we came inside students filled out the sheet with the sentence starter, “Our class went outside and ….” I told the students that they all needed to write that they “did” see their shadow but they could make their own decisions about whether or not they thought this meant 6 more weeks of winter.

Later I let them decide if they wanted to do the writing craftivity with “The Legend of the Groundhog” on top or “Happy Groundhog Day!” on top. Students decided which paper they were most proud of and glued their groundhogs to the top for an easy hallway display.

As I’ve said before, my students are total experts on groundhogs now. I loved how these turned out!

This child’s says “I love Groundhog Day! Groundhogs have flood bumps.”
(Just in case you are wondering, groundhogs dig down and then up again creating a “flood bump” so their burrows don’t get soaked after a heavy rain.)
I love the way this quick hallway display turned out!

Make sure to read over my other post about Groundhog Day! Let me know how you celebrate this special day with your class.

Groundhog Day Fun!

February 1, 2017

I had no idea how interesting groundhogs were until I read the book Groundhog gets a Say by Pamela Curtis Swallow. Although it is written as if it is told by a groundhog, it is full of interesting facts about groundhogs. I created a bundle for PK-2nd grade teachers that you can grab at my TPT store.

Groundhog Day Bundle – Crafts and Nonfiction Unit

My students love to do group research. (Yes! They can research with a group… even in kindergarten!) Just to give you an idea- I have 6 groups of 2-3 students. My lowest group was studying wordless photos of groundhogs. Then they were told to draw a picture about what they learned. My highest group was reading short passages about groundhogs and squirrels and comparing the 2 animals by completing a Venn diagram. I know it sounds like a lot for kindergarten but they can do it. I did this with my class today for an observation and it went great! If you would like to pick up just the Nonfiction Research Unit – you can grab that here.

Differentiated Group Research Project all about Groundhogs

I liked the idea of having each groups materials ready in a plastic bag so I could quickly pass them out and have the students get right to work. This worked seamlessly. The resource comes with a group planning guide and cards to label the groups which was really helpful and kept me organized. I’m sorry I don’t have more pics from this activity but I was so busy being evaluated that there was not much time to take pictures! 🙂 The kids impressed me so much with how hard they worked and how much they learned. We completed a KWL chart together and their answers were fantastic. Did you know that groundhogs are skilled climbers and swimmers which helps them escape predators? They are called whistle-pigs because they whistle to alert other groundhogs of potential danger. They truly hibernate meaning their heart rate slows way down, they sleep for months, and they barely even breathe…. I could go on and on and so can my kindergarten kids! They are ALL groundhog experts now!

We have completed several of the crafts already. The kids LOVED the peek-a-boo groundhog in a cup. I thought he turned out really cute and it really helped students remember the legend.

These are so cute!

We also tried putting the groundhog in some coffee filters. These were colored with markers and sprinkled with water. After they dried, we inserted the craft stick. It turned out pretty cute, but we still preferred the cup.

We had so much fun making the headbands and all the kids are looking forward to wearing those on Thursday.

We haven’t finished our hallway display yet, but we are working on it. This will include a cute little groundhog holding up some of the students’ writing so I will update soon with that picture. Tomorrow, we will be predicting the weather, going outside to check for our shadows, and graphing the results. (All of those activities are also included in the TPT resource.)

If you would like to grab just the crafts without the differentiated research group assignments, you can grab those here.

Legend of the Groundhog Crafts, Writing Projects, Prediction Activities and More!