How do you count down the days?

[DisMomAmy]

I'd like to see what other people are doing for countdowns. Do you use a poster? Do you use a garland? Do you cross the days off? Use stickers?

Post a picture (or describe it if you don't have one) of what your family does to count down the days until your trip.

In the past we have made a garland (paper chain) out of construction paper, but we want to do something different this year. I have my supply of Mickey Heads and I'm ready to create!

Thanks for sharing your ideas!

 

[Robindianne]

I'd like to see what other people are doing for countdowns. Do you use a poster? Do you use a garland? Do you cross the days off? Use stickers?

Post a picture (or describe it if you don't have one) of what your family does to count down the days until your trip.

In the past we have made a garland (paper chain) out of construction paper, but we want to do something different this year. I have my supply of Mickey Heads and I'm ready to create!

Thanks for sharing your ideas!

I'm interested in hearing what peeps say too! I'd love to do a countdown, although it'd have to be really really huge since we are so far out

 

[rivercottage]

Gosh what a wonderful idea, ive just hit 39 days, im thinking of making a simple calendar to stick on the fridge and cross the days off

 

[klmorg]

We have the coolest countdown calender! It is all handmade. We took a large half poster size piece of red and then glued white on top a bit smaller leaving about 2 inches of red showing top and bottom and about 1 inch red on the sides. We lightly outlined each of the days left (we had 40) and wrote the number of days left until we left for Disney on each one. Then we actually cut yellow squares out for each day and glued them on just a little at the top just enough to hold them in place. So as every day goes by we tear off the days flap and see how many days are left and we put a Disney sticker up for that day too in place of the flap! This calender has gotten compliments even from those that think we are Disney fanatics!! It was decorated with artwork and stickers too. We will certainly save it for our scrapbook for this trip! (Last trip we had the paper chain but this is MUCH more fun!)

 

[DWFan4Life]

we haven't do anything, we are just counting it in our minds. We usually surprise the kids, that's why we don't want to put anything that will lead them to think that me and DH have a surprise trip for them.

 

[DisMomAmy]

Well here is what we came up with...

We ended up making one for each of the kids - that wasn't my plan, but that's how it turned out. I didn't have enough Mickey Heads so I color copied them & I think they turned out as good as the originals from Home Depot.

The boys put a sticker on each morning.

It's set up just like a calendar - 7 days across - Sunday - Saturday.

 

[WLfamily]

We took a poster board and I decorated it where it said Walt Disney World Vacation. I then drew squares with each one numbered from the day we starting counting down. Every day the kids would take turns putting a disney sticker on the day we were on. By the end it was full of Disney characters. Beside the final day I put a sticker of the castle to show we had reached our destination. The kids loved it and the closer we got they made sure the sticker of the day was of a character that looked like they were preparing for a trip. Now I do have an enormous supply of Disney stickers being that I scrapbook so this may be more work for someone that would have to go out and buy them.

 

[araulscd]

We are still over a month out, but about a month and a half ago I bought my DS6 a pirate calendar and wrote the number of days left on each date until we leave. He has had a blast marking each day off...I can't wait to see how excited he gets when the time gets very close. I plan on doing something special for the two week countdown, just haven't figured out what that is yet.

 

[araulscd]

We took a poster board and I decorated it where it said Walt Disney World Vacation. I then drew squares with each one numbered from the day we starting counting down. Every day the kids would take turns putting a disney sticker on the day we were on. By the end it was full of Disney characters. Beside the final day I put a sticker of the castle to show we had reached our destination. The kids loved it and the closer we got they made sure the sticker of the day was of a character that looked like they were preparing for a trip. Now I do have an enormous supply of Disney stickers being that I scrapbook so this may be more work for someone that would have to go out and buy them.

I have just upgraded to the WL for my family's first WDW trip (I have been but as a child and it will be everyone else's first trip). I have been attempting a family vacation to WDW for a while, but have just now been able to schedule it and have wanted to stay at the WL badly. I am so excited that the b4/3f offer has made this possible. Do you have any tips about WL? Things not too miss, etc? It will be myself, DH, DS15 and DS6.

Thanks!!

 

[ImTooExcitedToSleep]

I printed out large size maps of the 4 parks and put them in a block on son's wall. Each map is about 2ft x 1.5ft (making the entire block 4foot across and 3foot high). Then I printed out about 180 flags (.5inch x 3inch). Each flag has the name of an attraction, show, restaurant or Disney character. Every night we add a flag to the map. When we're out of flags....

 

[PrincessBrideJo]

I am not sure exactly what I am going to do but I am going to do some kind of advent calendar like we do for Christmas. Either a poster board with flaps and you lift them up to find what we do that day or a poster board with "pockets" and put slips of paper inside.

We will only do a count down of 2 weeks though as my 4 year old doesn't really understand time that well anyways, haha.

I am gonna have us make mickey hats, watch certain Disney movies he has never seen (Peter Pan, Cinderella), make mickey themed food (cookies, pancakes) and other stuff like that for our "advents" each day.

 

[shocky5]

My kids are accountable for 6 'chores/responsibilities' daily - age appropriate. Some are actual work (like DD has to clean their bathroom and one DS has to handle trash) and others are self-improvement stuff, like exercise or finding a way to help someone each day - anyway, each responsibility is worth a set amount of money (and we are talking cents here) that they get rewarded daily, and it's tracked daily, before bedtime, by a chart I have made for each of them (with good ole posterboard and markers). Each night we either check them off on the chart or if they didn't do it, then they don't get credit for it. But where I am going here with this, is it also serves as a countdown with the final day being the day before we leave for WDW. And the money they have earned over this period of time is now their spending money on our trip. I make them 'checkbooks' which are totally fake but it helps them keep incentive to do 'something' each day but also gives them responsibility by making them budget themselves to a certain extent while we are on vacation. We did this our first trip and it was interesting to see them prioritize their souvenirs, etc.

Anyway - just what we do and now that we are getting closer to time, I see them really kicking it in gear and keeping their rooms cleaned and they are excited to see their gains. And yes, unfortunately, we have removed 'earnings' as well during extreme times of a poor choice made (have only had to do this once, but it worked because we have not had to do it again!) haha

 

[lucky978]

We did a calendar similar to the one shown above. We had 30 squares - with the margins of the calendar decorated with disney stickers, etc. Every day one of my girls would color in a mickey head (bought at craft store) and stick it in the square.

We are doing something similar this time - just bought the supplies today!

Here is a picture of ours from 2006.

 

[crzyeeyoreangel]

I have been counting down since 284....I have date counter on my home screen of me cell, one below, and one of my livejournal. I thought about the paper chain thing but the DH wouldnt allow it lol.

 

[Dipstick]

I have been counting down the days since we booked this trip. We haven't been to WDW for 6 years so I am excited and I am planning on getting a lot done on this vacation. I will probably will have no sleep during this vacation.

I am counting down the days by looking on the calender on my cell phone.

 

[Dannielle_1]

I created this for our last trip. I plan on using it again for our next in 5 weeks This time I also did a paper chain. My DS was 2 when I did the below countdown and I thought 2 weeks was more than enough for him to grasp. This year the chain has helped him understand the time before we go a little better. DS - "We don't go till all the rings are gone."

Anyway, I used a cookie cutter I had and traced the Mickey Heads onto a full size posterboard. I then used paint to fill them in and number. I also painted the words. I used a sharpie to trace the path.

Then I created a double sided airplane. I used a coloring page image I found on the internet and printed two downsized images on cardstock (one reversed). I colored in, cut out and hot glued a magnet between the two airplane. I then taped a metal washer behind each Mickey head so the plane can fly all the way to Zero! If your driving you could easily use a car image.

You could skip the metal washers if you hung directly on the fridge. My fridge front is already full, no room for a poster board - so I tacked it to the wall at DS height.

 

[Pixieflip]

We do a paper chain made out of WDW maps.

The kids have a blast guessing what park or attractions are on their strips as the tear them off. We hang it across the mantel, adjusting it accordingly as it gets shorter. We usually start it at about 110 days (we're over 8 months out right now, so not starting yet), because it's fun to go from 100 to 99. Then we forget and get to tear off big sections at a time.

I love ours, its kind of our tradition and we all look forward to it, but I also love checking out everyone's ideas here, too. You are all so creative!

 

[disneybarbie]

a few vacations ago i made a chain of multi-color paper-clips, removing one each day until we went - it was good except that we booked 9 months ahead so it was a very long chain!!

now i have the dvc countdown widget on my laptop, and a weekly countdown on the wdw calendar that's in the kitchen

Barbie

 

[Daddee]

We have a Dry erase board. Kinda makes it really easy.
My DD adds little notes on it almost daily. It gets reset about once every 2 weeks.
Currently her notes are. I <3 u daddy and I am going to be a princess!!!.