Since I teach Pre-K during the school year I don't make any income during the summer, which unfortunately doesn't leave us with a grand family vacation budget to visit Disney World, Disneyland, Hawaii, a cruise, etc. However, this does allow me to get creative with local and nearby attractions to make our summer fun! My boys are 6 (almost 7) and 5. They have a bit of anxiety (they hit the genetic lottery by getting most of my genes!) Anyway, because of this anxiety they've always been timid about rides at carnivals and fairs, so we've held off taking them to big amusement parks. When you're smack-dab in the middle of the country you're somewhat limited on options for family vacations. Don't get me wrong, the options we have are wonderful, but you pretty much have the choice to either drive a few hours to various amusement park or make a longer drive to the National Parks. These are the options we've considered: Black Hills & Mount Rushmore, SDHeading north for 8 hours we would arrive in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I have been here several times and it's always breathtaking. There are also several fun stops along the way, Wall-Drug anyone?! If you drive along you'll see the countless signs for it. Plus we always make a stop along the way in Valentine, NE to see Smith Falls. If you have extra time you can also tube down the Niobrara to add to your experience! Once in the Black Hills we drive through Custard State Park, ride the Alpine Slides, Tramway Adventures, visit the Crazy Horse Monument, and of course visit Mount Rushmore, I especially like to hike the trials surrounding amount Rushmore. Estes Park & the Rockies, COThe Colorado border is a little over five hours from our home and the first stop would be Estes Park, another 3.5 hours away. We could also journey down to Denver (3 hours from the border) which has a ton of kids activities, or go down south to ride a train through the mountains, which is on our travel bucket list. Yellowstone National ParkIf we were to make a longer drive, we would head northwest 14 hours to Yellowstone National Park. I've never been here so I can't attest to all we would see along the way nor what fun attractions WY itself might hold, in addition to the majesty of the park. This trip is absolutely on our travel bucket list, but at a later date when we have more days to travel. Worlds of Fun & Kansas City, MONow we're getting closer to home... Three hours south of us is Kansas City (Missouri or Kansas depending on what venue you're at). Both Worlds of Fun and Kansas City over a ton of options for our family. Crown Center alone has Legoland Discovery Center, SeaLife Aquarium, Union Station, Model Train Experience, Fritz Railroad Restaurant (your food is brought to you on a model train!), Crayola, and more. Great Wolf Lodge is also nearby for a fun indoor waterpark option. Worlds and Oceans of Fun is a great Midwest amusement park offering roller coasters, thrill rides, a waterpark, and Planet Snoopy for kids. Planet Snoopy is what makes Worlds of Fun a big contender for our vacation. Located in the middle of the park there are 15 attractions dedicated to the littles in our family. It features classic kids rides like boats, airplanes, mini roller coaster, balloon ride, etc. One area I know my kids will love is the Peanuts Playhouse, which is an interactive foam ball play area designed for children with foam targets, cannons, and slides! Ocean of Fun features lots of water slides, wave pool, lazy river, kids splash areas. Daily tickets to Worlds of Fun (for 2017) vary depending on the day of the week, time of the day, how many days you're visiting, and whether you're buying tickets ahead of time online or at the gate. For us, buying two-days of tickets online would cost us $59 each, plus a $30 for 2-days of parking, totaling $266. There are a lot of options including inclusive dining, VIP parking, etc to make your visit more enjoyable. Adventureland, IowaAll of of these are excellent options and provide unique, educational, and fun experiences for our young family. For us, we were working on a limited budget and only four days, so all the national park options were out.
Our vacation is between Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, or Adventureland in Des Moines. Check back soon to see what we pick! Today I focused on assembling the dramatic play area in my classroom. I'm blessed to have a large room, so one half of the room is our home center and the other side I'm dedicating to seasonally themed dramatic play. There will always been a forest of trees on the wall and the theme will change as the weather changes. For September, I will attach apples to the trees for the kids to go apple picking! I didn't get far enough today to attach the apples, but here is a preview of the trees. I used fadeless art paper rolls from Oriental Trading. Fellow teachers saw what I was making and wanted to make some trees for their rooms too and I still have a ton of paper left over. I ordered these bobbing apples from OTC and plan to glue magnets on them as well as adhere magnets behind my tree for the students to "pick" off the tree during class. I considered Velcro at one point, but I fear it could be too sticky and rip my tree. Come October there will be leaves on the ground to rake and pumpkins to pick from a mini pumpkin patch. Going into November, the greenery will be removed, bare branches will show, and eventually be covered in snow. We are going to spend a lot of the time in September focusing on academic assessments and using apples as a fun theme. In attempts the merge the two focuses, I snagged some apple cut outs from OTC. We will be measuring our heights based on her number of apples it takes, we will also use them for a fun craft based on Dr. Seuss' "Ten Apples on Top" book, and lastly will assess number values with an apple and the correspondence "worm". You can find the papers I used to create my art walk, and many more teaching supplies, here: Oriental Trading Teacher Supplies Disclaimer: This review is based strictly on my opinion. I was provided the sample free of charge by the company to provide my honest review. No other type of compensation was received. All ideas and opinions are my own.
My school doesn't start back up until after Labor Day, so today was the first day I was able to get in and start setting up my classroom.
My goal was to get most of my art wall assembled, especially since my class size has doubled and I wasn't sure it was all going to fit! Luckily, I had the perfect amount of space between my dry erase board and corner wall to fit ten 12x12 scrapbook papers in a row. Because my classroom is a shared spaced in the evenings I have a particular color theme I have to adhere to, but luckily for me Oriental Trading Company has a Full Color Spectrum scrapbook paper pack that features all the hues of our building theme (plus more!). After obsessively measuring and remeasuring the paper grid, I attached the papers to wall with tacky putty so hopefully they will stay up overnight. If they don't hold up I will try the painters tape & hot glue trick next. When I come back to set up on Day 2, I will secure clothespins on the wall slightly above the papers (so I don't weigh down the scrapbook paper backgrounds), and attach art placeholders that say "Amazing work by ______ coming soon!" Day 2 will also begin assembly of my Brag Tag Wall, featuring some items I personally designed and more awesome products from Oriental Trading. I can't wait to have everything up and ready for our Meet the Teacher Open House!
You can find the papers I used to create my art walk, and many more teaching supplies, here:
​Disclaimer: This review is based strictly on my opinion. I was provided the sample free of charge by the company to provide my honest review. No other type of compensation was received. All ideas and opinions are my own |
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