Countdowns for children

[audraz2]

What do you do to count the many days until you leave? If I hear when are we leaving for the big boat 1 more time...

[mactrio]

Get some ship shaped cutouts, put them on a calendar or poster, number them for how many days until your cruise and each day have your children remove one ship until only 1 ship is left. Make it fun and with 30 days to go, they can make a list of things to bring, 15 days left they can help pack, 10 days left go buy sunblock, lipbalm, hats, sunglasses, etc...make it fun for them and they will love it.

[mjmalino]

This may be sneaky, but we wait a bit until we get closer to the cruise to tell the kids we are going. Once we do tell them, we mark the date that we leave our house on the calendar along with the date the cruise leaves and then start marking days off the calendar.

[highrollers]

My son is older now but we used to make a "chain link" countdown. We cut out strips of construction paper for the number of days that we had left for the cruise, and then stapled them together into a chain link. Each day our son would remove one link of his chain. He was able to watch it go from this really long chain down to a little chain and he was so thrilled when he only had a few left.

[crusinmama06]

From Day 30 on, we have a "cruise countdown calendar" on the fridge. I make one in the computer and add pictures from the ship, but you could make your own with construction paper.

 

It starts with day 30 and counts down to cruise day.

 

Every morning they wake up and put an X on the calendar. :D

[GTO-Girl]

My son is older now but we used to make a "chain link" countdown. We cut out strips of construction paper for the number of days that we had left for the cruise, and then stapled them together into a chain link. Each day our son would remove one link of his chain. He was able to watch it go from this really long chain down to a little chain and he was so thrilled when he only had a few left.

 

This what I did for our granddaughter before we took her on her first Disney cruise. In addition to putting 30 days, 29 days, etc I also put a phrase on the back of each one telling her about something that we were going to experience (i.e. "You will see Mickey" or "You will get to wear your Princess dress to dinner")

 

She loved it!!!