Preschool Dinosaur Day & Letter "D" Activities

We follow a curriculum that doesn't teach the letters of the alphabet in alphabetical order. When I saw that the week to teach letter "D" was dangerously near National Dinosaur Week (yeah, it's a real thing) I had to combine the two into a delightful day of dinosaur, letter "D" themed learning.
Disgusted with the "D" words yet? ;)

We started the day with dinosaur oatmeal...do you guys remember this stuff? It certainly brings back childhood memories for me. Cook the oatmeal and tiny (candy) dinosaurs hatch out of little sugar eggs!

After circle time we read "Dinosaurs Galore!" by Giles Andreae, illustrated by David Wojlowycz. This book is literally so beloved and adored by my children that each page has fallen out and been taped back in at least once, but I couldn't miss another opportunity to read this to them and include it in our lesson. 

A fun little fine motor and literacy reinforcement afterward - found this printable gem on Pinterest! If you haven't seen my Pinterest board yet, you can find this printable saved to the "January" board along with many other ideas that came from the other genius bloggers and teachers of Pinterest. :)

We took a break for Dinosaur Yoga and much repeat playing of "We Are the Dinosaurs" from the Laurie Berkner band on YouTube. The Dinosaur Yoga pin is just adorable, this blogger took the time to detail how to describe each yoga pose as a dinosaur or baby dino egg...the kids LOVED it!

Another printable helped us to do our letter D dinosaur craft which involved coloring, stamping, cutting and gluing. All of DG's favorite things to do pretty much, with very minimal direction from mama. ;)

We love our Usborne books and I think that "I'm a Dirty Dinosaur" is just top notch. The illustrations are so fun and the storyline seems to really captivate the little ones. We read this before nap time to wrap up our dinosaur day - it has that nice alliteration - Dirty Dinosaur - to reinforce the letter "D" literacy component. 

Last spring we did dinosaurs around the world using "I'm A Dirty Dinosaur" and our Dinosaur World Atlas sticker book. I was just getting DG started with learning to use safety scissors, so he cut all of the pieces for this dinosaur independently and then we worked together to glue them into the shape of our dinosaur friend here. 

It's so crazy to look back and see how much he's grown in less than a year. But I had to include this fun dinosaur activity as well. :) 

Rawrrrr...

Sweet Strawberry Tallcake

I love strawberry shortcake in the summer. Homemade, fluffy white cake with fresh strawberries and puffy whipped cream...I would have made exactly that aside from the fact that I didn't have any heavy whipping cream. 

Plus I wanted something...sweeter. Something sweet enough to take away the winter blues.

If strawberry shortcake is good, strawberry tallcake would be better!

I started with a basic white cake mix. I flubbed separating one of the egg whites so about half a yolk did enter the batter. No problem, it still tasted heavenly. ;) If you're in need, I recommend this one found on King Arthur Flour's website: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/tender-white-cake-recipe

I baked this cake in two 8" round cake pans, sprayed with baking spray. I tried using avocado oil spray for a couple of cakes over the summer and will never make that mistake again. If I'm going for a rich, sweet, cake, I'm going all the way with fat content!

Once cooled, I spread a layer of all-natural strawberry preserves on top of the bottom layer and then placed the upper layer firmly on top. 

I made a light buttercream frosting from 4 cups of confectioners sugar, 1/4 cup of whole milk, 1.5 sticks of salted sweet cream butter, 1 tsp of vanilla extract and mix. I whipped the butter with a fork first...I just always do this and I'm going to show just how lazy I am but for a small batch of buttercream I prefer to use the hand-held mixer or a fork and some elbow grease. 

I only put the buttercream on the top of the cake. I didn't wait until the cake was cool enough which is why it is not pictured as a whole cake! ;) So, lesson learned, I will be more patient next time.

It still tasted delicious though and looked mighty pretty when garnished with some fresh, sweet strawberries.

You can kind of see that sloppy cake top in the background...oops! Shhh! :)

All-Inclusive Disney World Vacation Under $150 Per Person Per Day!

Whew, that was a long title. But I feel like since we got back from our Walt Disney World trip, that's been what I've been sharing - and happy to share - with anyone who asks. So I might as well blog about it!
I did my math, checked it twice, and for our family of four we spent under $150 per person, per day, for our five day vacation.

How?? I'll tell you.

I did oodles of research before we even decided where to stay, how to book, and when to go. I checked crowd calendars, looked into every single resort option both on and off Disney property, and compared dozens of price figures side by side. Sure, it was time consuming, but it was also really fun!

Savings #1 - Go during off-peak season.
Savings Amount: Varies by time of year, helps you to get more "bang for you buck" - less time spent waiting and navigating crowds.
When looking at the crowd calendar (these can be found on Pinterest, some will vary so it can be good to cross-reference) it seemed as though the days in February that we wanted to go - because it was DG's fourth birthday - were low crowd times, off-peak prices, and really nice weather! The weather WAS beautiful, perfect for spending all day at the parks, no rain, and warm enough to swim in the afternoon. The prices were some of the lowest all year. End of August/early September or mid-October through early November were comparable/lower prices in comparison. Additionally, we could have saved even more if we had stayed Sunday-Thursday or Monday-Friday rather than Saturday-Wedneday, but my husband had very limited time to take off from work. We went around the first weekend in February, and I'll say this - I read it on one other blog AFTER we returned that February is becoming a busy season at Disney. Turns out the secret is "out" and many families are choosing to visit Disney World in early February as well. We did see some decent crowds especially on Saturday, Sunday, Monday which meant longer wait times than expected. This also may have to do with the dance competitions that are hosted that weekend and families staying longer after competition has wrapped up.

Savings #2 - Renting DVC Points.
Savings Amount: 50% off in our case, changes with seasonal rates.
Yes, I'm talking about renting points from Disney Vacation Club members. This can be done a few different ways, I chose to use David's Vacation Club Rentals because it's risk-free and they handle all of the communications with the members. We also paid via PayPal so we were able to pay for our rental over six months with no interest. This allowed us to stay at the Polynesian for around the same price as staying at Art of Animation with the current Disney promo that was going on which we used for price comparison. It was even cheaper than any of the moderate or deluxe resorts - plus it allowed us to watch fireworks from our room, enjoy top-notch amenities, and have quick transportation via the monorail transportation. It was truly a win-win for us.

Savings #3 - Ticket savings!
Savings Amount: $40+ per person
Three quick tips here:
1) Join MouseSaver's Newsletter and use their link to get Undercover Tourist's best prices on tickets. We scored a free day this way - five days for the price of four. Something to consider: the longer you stay, the cheaper tickets are per day.
2) Forgoing the park hopper option. It really didn't make sense for us. While Disney has great transportation systems in place, unless there's a specific reason that you need to park hop, we found that it would just be a waste of time rather than committing to one park per day and just enjoying all that park has to offer.
3) Kids under three are FREE. This is something some people don't realize, but it really does pay to take your young child to Disney. Not only do they stay and play free at the parks (they don't count toward room occupancy and do not need tickets) but they can eat off your plate for free as well - but I'll elaborate on that some more next.

Savings #4 - Dining Plans.
Savings Amount: $300+ in total
This one saves you time and money: opt for a Deluxe or Regular Disney Dining Plan rather than paying as you go. We used this handy calculator: http://distripplanner.com to find that we'd save roughly $300 by getting the Deluxe Dining Plan. We knew that we wanted to do a lot of character meals and buffets. Many of these meals are served family style or buffet style and with young children this is a huge benefit because you're in and out faster so you have more time to enjoy the park plus you don't have to wait for cooked to order food. This also allowed us to have some higher quality meals that would have cost our little family of four $200 and worked out to be half that on the dining plan. You also pay in advance so there's no concerns about budgeting - plus you can plan your days better with Advanced Dining Reservations - very helpful with little ones. And speaking of little ones, under three can eat as much as they want at family style and buffet meals at no charge. Even at traditional sit-down meals there was always enough food on the Deluxe Dining Plan that Noah was able to have his fill of favorite foods between appetizers, entrees, and desserts.

*Bonus Savings* because you know I just can't help myself!
Transportation Savings:
#1: Skip the rental car and use Disney's Magical Express.
Savings Amount: $150-$250
This convenient and very fun transportation picks you up at Orlando International Airport and takes you back, too! They play this cute little video with Disney travel info along with classic Disney cartoons. It totally eliminates the need for other transportation. This isn't applicable if you're driving to Disney, but for us a 2-day drive just wasn't happening. We were able to wait and checked airline prices every Tuesday, so when I found flights for under $80 each, I snapped them up. The boys loved flying on the airplane so it was actually a very exciting experience to begin and end the trip.