Princess Camp: Frozen

Loose structure for my summer at home with a toddler

Last year was my first summer with a toddler. This year, I was READY. My daughter is an outside kid, which makes 100° days difficult. We spend lots of time at parks and playgrounds, our local swimming hole, and the 5 fantastic public libraries in our area. But I wanted to have some home activities ready to go and, since we just started potty training and we’ve needed to stick closer to home, having some loosely structured activities lined up has been perfect for us.

I have been a children’s librarian, a nanny, and a preschool teacher, so planning activities for young kids doesn’t feel hard for me; it’s actually fun. I looked online for some sort of activity guide or play curriculum we could use this summer. I wasn’t so much looking for an educational resource, but more of a play resource. I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted, so I made it.

Introducing, Princess Camp. Using the Disney princesses as inspiration, I’m structuring our summer activities around a weekly theme (Elsa: snow. Tiana: frogs. Ariel: oceans. etc). Each week, I plan several (mostly) open-ended activities according to the weekly princess. I take home a haul of library books according to the theme, search online for craft and play activities (as well as fun recipes), and take note of 5-7 things we can do at home to help ease the burden of boredom. I don’t plan on when exactly we’ll do each activity, I just keep all the supplies I need on hand to pull out when we have down time between play dates and library events. When we’ve spent a morning with friends at the splash pad and I want to take it easy and stay home in the afternoon, I check my list for activity options and pick what I have capacity for in that moment. Sometimes it’s homemade play dough, sometimes it’s baking, sometimes it’s just a princess coloring sheet. Sometimes, it’s just watching the movie. I buy some new things, but I mostly try to use things we already have or buy cheap supplies I can get at the grocery store. I’ve been loving it so far.

For our first week of Princess Camp, Elsa and Anna are the stars. Here are the fun things we got up to during Frozen week.

A New Dress

I set out all the books we had on Elsa and Anna, along with her Elsa tonie for her toniebox, and a brand new Elsa costume. She loved twirling to Let it Go, but she was back in her Moana costume within an hour (just wait for Moana week, it’s going to be amazing!) I don’t intend on buying new costumes or toys each week; this was a special exception for our opening ceremony.

Homemade Cloud Dough

Our first activity was homemade cloud dough, which is just cornstarch and hair conditioner mixed together to make a silky soft play dough. You can also add food coloring, but we kept it white for our snow theme. I added some white glitter to make it sparkle, but I don’t think Scout even noticed, and we definitely could have done without. She used a rolling pin and snowflake cookie cutters in her play- I really like the handles on these cookie cutters. I’m saving this week’s cloud dough to reuse next week.

A Trip to the Library

At the library, we picked up 9 of my favorite books on snow. The woman checking us out asked if we were in denial about the summer. I thought that was a dumb thing to say. I keep these books around the house to read whenever inspiration strikes. I don’t force reading time, it just happens when it happens. Funnily enough, Scout is a lot more likely to ask her dad to read her a book than she is to ask me. Doesn’t she know I am a professional? I get it, he’s better at the voices.

Snow Books:

• Waiting for Snow by Marsha Diane Arnold

• Snowflake in My Pocket by Rachel Bright

• Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner (my favorite!)

• It’s Snowing! by Gail Gibbons

• Snow Happy! by Patricia Hubbell

• First Snow by Peter McCarthy

• SNOW by Uri Shulevitz

• Snow by Manja Stojic

• Snow Bears by Martin Waddell

Frozen Books

Most of the Frozen-specific books we read were either from the library or picked up from thrift stores. Here were our favorites:

Frozen books:

• Anna and Elsa’s Hygge Life

• Anna, Elsa, and the Secret River

• A New Reindeer Friend

• Magic Hearts/Corazones Magicos

• Sisters/Las Hermanas

• A Tale of Two Sisters

• We’ll Always Have Each Other

Hidden Jewelry

This activity took a little more forethought than most. I froze some of Scout’s play jewelry in sandcastle molds then presented her with water and a jumbo pipette to slowly melt the ice to free her jewelry. I added a blue Bath Dropz tablet to the water cup to make it a little more fun.

Marshmallow Snowmen

I’m thinking that one activity each week will be of the snacking sort. This week, we attempted these cute marshmallow snowmen I found on Pinterest from Kids Activities Blog (this is their photo below). Ours didn’t turn out nearly so cute, but we did enjoy eating a lot of marshmallows.

Play Snow

This is something I did with my students when I taught preschool last year. It’s a simple mixture of baking soda and hair conditioner, and I threw in some toy penguins and shovels and scoops from her sandbox. After she covered our house in baking soda, I realized this was an activity better suited for the patio.

A Coloring Sheet

And when I want to keep it simple, I love these giant coloring sheets. I bought a set of Disney Princess sheets and another set of just Frozen. I like to tape them on our glass door for her to color with markers or paint with watercolors.

I’m really excited to add this loose structure to our time at home together this summer. The thing is, Scout would be happy with just about any sort of play. I could go into the day with no structure, no plan, and she would be fine. She would go about her business, digging in the kitchen cabinets, taking her baby doll on walks, and pouring out clods of dirt from the succulent on my desk. She would be fine. But having at least a vague idea of where our day will take us, helps keep me calm. The teeny bit of structure allows me something to count on, something to separate one day from another so that they don’t bleed together into a muddle of hours and days and minutes chewing me up and spitting me out in an endless stream of monotony (too dramatic?). The structure brings me a little peace, a little predictably, in a life with a kid who is wonderful and anything but predictable. I have a lot more activities to clean up, but less dirt on my desk. It’s not really for her. It’s for me.