Disney@Home

I wanted to come up with some ideas to make Spring Break fun for all of us, to take advantage of the free time with no school, but to avoid the boredom of being home all day long for a week with no structure.  I was leaning toward something Disney-ish but couldn't settle on a plan until I talked to my friend Margot, who suggested I plan each day around the location of a movie.  So that's what I did.  I planned some food and activities that corresponded to a movie for Monday-Thursday, then promised the kids a movie marathon for Friday - with NO piano practice!

I told the kids a little about what we were doing on Sunday evening, kicking off the Disney@Home week with a California-cousin-video-chat-Kahoot-Disney-trivia-challenge that was really fun, plus our first attempt at Dole Whips (this one was not a success) and Mickey pizza for dinner.

We didn't start on our food and activities until lunch time or later most days (reserving morning for piano practice, reading, jobs around the house, and just hanging out).  Monday was the only day we actually did/ate all of the things I had planned, but maybe we'll come back around to the things we missed eventually.  After all, we'll continue to have plenty of time at home for a while...

Monday - The Princess and the Frog - New Orleans

Mickey pancakes for breakfast, just because we could.

Inspired by the movie: "It is not slime.  It is mucus!"
Eliza was the most excited about making slime and I
was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to make!

We all decorated Mardi Gras masks and listened to jazz music after dinner.
Except for Jack, who wasn't interested, but I made him get in the picture anyway.

Tuesday - The Three Caballeros - Mexico

We made a pinata using paper mache - the kids enjoyed the process of making the shape.
Unfortunately, it needed more time to dry than we had in a day, and my attempts to speed
up the process ended up messing up the pinata, so we learned our lesson for next time.

Yummy churros!

Making the "Ojo de Dios" crafts was actually something we ran out of time for on Tuesday
but Eliza and Luke worked on a few Wednesday morning.

Wednesday - Cinderella - Germany (home of the castle the Prince's was based on)

We attempted giant bubbles for the first time, and they kind of worked.
This was because of the scrubbing-the-floor scene in the movie.

The pretzels were great!  Not hard to make, and tasted really good.
The kids immediately requested that we make them again.

Thursday - Mulan - China

The girls helped with the egg rolls for dinner - Cat took care of the frying
while Eliza stuffed and wrapped them.  They turned out great!

I know fortune cookies are not traditional Chinese fare (and neither are egg rolls,
for that matter) but I thought we'd enjoy making them.  I also enjoyed the fortunes
everyone came up with.

They were fun to shape and tasted much better than store-bought!