OK, DIS teachers...

[Sinderelli]

How do you bring the Disney magic into your classroom?

-I am thinking about celebrating Walt's birthday this year.
-I always use Disney notepads that I buy on vacation to write "good news" notes to my students. (They love the Tink paper and the monorail shaped notepad)

Anyone else? I'm always looking for new ideas!

 

[daisyduck123]

I bet there will be lots of teachers on here with good ideas. I don't really do much "Disney" stuff in my classroom. I go every year during school (last year I went twice), miss 6 or 7 school days each time, & I don't like to "push" the Disney thing too much. Some of the parents know I'm in Disney when I go on these trips & others don't. About the only thing I do is play Disney music often. I have a Disney Halloween CD & lots of Disney Christmas CDs.

 

[Sinderelli]

C'mon DIS teachers....Inspire me!

 

[HappyLawyer]

i leave it out of my classroom, so many of my students will never experience the magic, so i do not want to make them feel bad.

 

[Kitty 34]

i leave it out of my classroom, so many of my students will never experience the magic, so i do not want to make them feel bad.

How do you know? I didn't go for the first time until I was 44!!

 

[CindyBella]

Not a teacher here but a room mom/ involved parent. We go to disney 4 or more times a year so I love it!!!! I am very aware that we are super lucky. I "get" the magic but, I think I would be a little wierded out if my kids teacher celebrated Walt Disney's Birthday! Just my opinion.

How about buying a collection of Disney Theme Park edition board games for rainy days?

 

[Pinnie]

I am a kindergarten teacher and I use the Tink Wand for my pointer. The kids LOVE to use her to find letters in a sentence on the board, etc. For those that are not into Tink, I got a pointer from LAKESHORE that looks like enough like a MICKEY hand that they enjoy using. I also have a variety of Mickey pencils at my Word of the Day center to use and also at my Math and Counting center.

I begged a roll of those wonderful round Mickey Stickers off of a CM and use them in various ways in the classroom. They are mounted on a 3x5 card over their hooks with numbers. I also mounted them on a card and laminated them and the kids use them as counters, matching games. etc.

I collect old WDW room keys and put them in my dramatic play area and the kids pretend they are "credit cards"

pinnie

 

[disneylizzy]

i leave it out of my classroom, so many of my students will never experience the magic, so i do not want to make them feel bad.

ITA. JMO, but its kinda too much of your personal life in the classroom.

 

[EEYOREMAMA]

As a teacher who has to wear a badge I have my pins on my lanyard. I always have my Tinks and Eeyores and I rotate my holiday pins as the holidays change. My kids love the fact that I don't make a big deal of them, they just accessorize my personality.

I let the kids do the commenting. I also have Disney earrings and shirts. Even in Florida, we have many kids that have never been to WDW. I've let my kids draw pictures of their favorite characters if we have down time. They usually try to copy the pins.

When I taught younger grades we had the Sing-A-Long videos and read Disney books. Can't do that in Middle School. Well I guess I could, but they'd probably send for the men in the white coats as soon as the kids stopped laughing. Middle school kids are "too cool" to be fun.

 

[xyzabc33]

SINDER...How old are your classroom kids? If they are older, maybe you could do something on the business end of the entertainment industry(animation, etc??)and work in the fact that that day is Walt;'s Bday.

Or if the kids are younger, have them make their own comic strip or create their own cartoon character--present more then one company's example of cartoons and again work in the Walt Bday thing.

Either way they would be exposed to one area of the arts and learn a cool trivia fact without imposing something personal on them. Who knows? One of them may share the special day.

Not a teacher here but just full of useless ideas...LOL