Countdown Ideas with Kids

[MrHappy]

I'm going in early May. We've told our 2 and 4 year old as part of their Christmas gift - a risky move considering some of "are we there yet" feedback others I read get. But the cat (mouse) is out of the bag and I'm wondering if you have any creative/fun/educational ways to help countdown the months/weeks/days until the trip. I'm assuming trying to stay somewhat reserved until may be a few weeks out. I've already begun laying some ground work, more so they are visually prepared with some rides (they already love Figment and Dumbo), by showing YouTube vids.
Thoughts? Thanks!

 

[JennSmith]

We started planning last year's trip at 477 days out. We did several things lol. The first thing we did was decorated a jar and placed folded up pictures of all the Disney movies we had in it, which was almost all of them...we're pathetic lol. Each week we picked one from the jar and watched the movie we picked whether we were feeling it or not. That took us all the way through to our departure week. In addition to this for the first 100 days of our countdown we made one of those Mickey paper chains and each day ripped off a link. For the second 100 days I printed off a poster sized picture of the castle and bought a ton of stickers...all different Disney characters. Each day each kid would pull a sticker out of the baggy and stick it wherever they wanted on the castle pic. By the time we were done with those countdowns we just made a Disney themed flip countdown and flipped each day. It was really fun each time you got to flip a digit from the tens place...especially fun when you got to flip in the hundreds place.
This time we are just sticking to the flip countdown again. I actually looked at it when we were locking everything up and thought to myself that we should probably take it down now. I figured when we came home I would be super depressed taking it down then...not knowing when we would go back again. Luckily we got a bounce back offer and were able to just keep counting when we came home. 245 days to go YAY!!!

 

[Weather_Lady]

I made an oversized calendar for the month before our trip, with the "number of days until Disney" printed on each day. Then I made tabs out of cardstock to cover each day (so the kids could remove one every day to reveal the new countdown number). Each tab had a photograph of a WDW attraction on the back, along with some information about it. Since the kids had never been before, this was a great way to educate them about some of the things we'd be doing at WDW, while giving them a way to count down until our departure. It looked like this one (I grabbed the photo from online - not sure I have one of my calendar), only with countdown numbers written on the Mickey heads, and a square flap taped over each day until it was uncovered:

If I had it to do over again, I'd have made it a flip-style calendar (see the photo below), so I could use larger countdown numbers (and still have attraction information included on a separate card -- where the "See You Real Soon!" one is in the photo), and it would be more "re-usable" and not tied to any actual calendar dates. The kids have begged to re-use ours for every trip, and over time, the tabs have gotten dog-eared and I've had to white-out the dates and write in new ones every time we go.

 

[DVCPluto]

In the past while counting down our trips, we have planned different themed nights - pirate night, toy story night, star wars night, etc. This gave us something else to plan and look forward to. We would then talk about that theme in the parks and research where we could find the characters, rides, or shows.

With a 2 and 4 YO, you could do disney stuffed animal scavenger hunts. I like the idea of a flip calendar, so that they have a concrete version of time. Visuals for that age are great! If you enjoy planning your trip, just make the countdown part of the planning by scheduling different activities and having mini countdowns to those. Hope you have a wonderful trip!!

 

[MrHappy]

Wow, you guys are awesome! Thank you everyone, very creative and thoughtful work. I will probably kick the "official" countdown stuff at the 3 month mark which is just a week away. DVCPluto, great point about visuals and their age - I need to remember to keep the activities age appropriate/at their level. Let the hype machine begin!

Keep the ideas coming, I'd love to hear more!

 

[PinnySmart]

Great ideas!

 

[Princess Kaylee]

I'm going in early May. We've told our 2 and 4 year old as part of their Christmas gift - a risky move considering some of "are we there yet" feedback others I read get. But the cat (mouse) is out of the bag and I'm wondering if you have any creative/fun/educational ways to help countdown the months/weeks/days until the trip. I'm assuming trying to stay somewhat reserved until may be a few weeks out. I've already begun laying some ground work, more so they are visually prepared with some rides (they already love Figment and Dumbo), by showing YouTube vids.
Thoughts? Thanks!

Here's ours, I hope it serves as some inspiration.

 

[yensid67]

I use a countdown on my computer! timeleft by nestorsoft inc. Just do a search for free countdowns and look for Nestor Soft(Timeleft)
When you make your countdown, it stays on your main page of the computer! You can customize it and color it as well! For 2 and 4 years olds, I would do something more visual...maybe a calendar with pull tabs...maybe contact WDW and have their favorite character pics signed and sent to them as time get closer! "Send" them a gift bag from Mickey with little treats in it for their trip...Disney store comes in handy here! Something that might be fun for them to do to their room(s)...have different Disney inspired decorations...each day/week they can pic one or two things and place it on their walls to decorate their room!(that's just off the top off my head!) Look at the trip through your kids eyes and think about what they would do to countdown. Family craft time!!!!!!