My dancing girl

No matter where she is, if music comes on, she MUST dance. I presume ALL girls are like this. I try to take photos, but there is no predicting the direction she will take. It is 100% freestyle! 

Building co-op - Building a 3D community

For the last building co-op I asked the kids to bring found objects from home (boxes, toilet paper rolls, feathers, toothpicks, etc...) I cut up 10 pieces of cardboard and painted a road plan on them. On the day of the co-op I gave each child one piece. On it they had to create their piece of the community. They could have buildings, parks, vehicles, people - whatever they liked. 

When they were done they were able to put the pieces together to create a community and then play with them as they pleased. My guys put their pieces together and added cars and animals and played with them over the next few days. 

Our junior navigators

To help the kids understand the distance we are traveling and where we are traveling Heinrich made each of them a small laminated map book.

On the first page is a map of the whole route with a star for the starting point.

On each additional page is a section of the route. Every time we reach a significant landmark or destination they will add a sticker to mark our progress.

Our vacation countdown chart

This is our countdown chart for Disney. Actually we're further along than what this picture shows. It may not be pretty but it was effective. We made a collage of Disney park photos and then I placed stickers in a spiral leading to Cinderella's castle. Every day I added a strip of glue from yesterday's date to today's date and we cover it in glitter. It really kept things in perspective. The kids really haven't gone too crazy with excitement. Even knowing today that they still have one more day to get through, they're not driving us nuts yet. I think the 21 hour car ride will probably be a good time for that.