Counting Down for a 4yo

[maciec]

I am looking for a something to help countdown our days to WDW for my 4yo.

Last year I found a website where they had nice printable calendars, but of course I lost it. Does anyone know here I can find a printable countdown calendar or just a printable calendar Disney themed? Thanks!

I am also open to hearing your ideas as to how you countdown the days. We have a while so I am not ready for a paper link chain yet. Although, it would be pretty neat to do.

Thanks,
Melissa

 

[POOH&PIGLET]

We usually do a paper link chain.

Last time we went (oldest DD was age 4), I read a few pages from the kids guide to WDW every night at bed time. After we finished each park, we made a list of "Must do" rides.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

When my twins were that age we counted down the old fashioned way: we simply used our wall calendar. We circled the date and then each evening crossed off the days as they passed. It really helped them learn about days, weeks, months, seasons, etc... Now we still do the same thing but we buy our calendars in the giftshop at WDW and give it to them as a Christmas present from Santa (who knows how much they love their trips) so it makes it special for them.

 

[summersfam4]

We made a calendar ourselves (starting at 180 days), it was alot of work, but DD enjoyed helping out it's very educational!. I bought poster board, perm.marker, and about 4 packs of Disney themed stickers at the dollar tree. When I got home I made 180 squares on the 3 poster boards while DD who loves to cut, cut out mickey mouse shapes (the cutting of the 180 head shapes took weeks but we cut them little by little so it was a fun do together as we talked about Disney world. Then after we labled the dates in the middle of each square, and the countdown number at the bottom DD stuck the Disney stickers all over, knowing we would be covering them up but the more we covered up, the closer our trip was. We also labled any "exciting" dates like the half way mark , little DD's 1st B-day, DH's b-day, our special pre disney treasure hunt : (a couple of weeks before the trip), and any holidays, special pre-trip shopping days, ect! We are within 30 days now and DD gets more excited with each passing day. The calendar is hung in the playroom and sometimes when we would forget to mark off a couple of days it would be just as exciting to go in and mark off 3-4 days and see good results, it was also exciting to finish each of the calendars (red first for "stop" as in farthest away, yellow for caution as the excitement grows, green for GO GO GO!!)

It's alot of fun and it really helps the days go buy as you could do it just a little at a time (once a week add to everything mickey cutouts, stickers, days, ect. ), it also has helped DD learn to count down, dates, months, weeks ect. Can't wait to make another next year, things like this are part of the fun!

Good luck, and let us know what you decide to do as we would also be interested with any ideas that you come up with!

Kelly