Hot Chocolate!

Even though we don't push Santa in our house (Hannah and Ben understand that he's just a fun story like any other fairy tale), my kids became enamored with the movie The Polar Express this Christmas. They have an infatuation with trains already, and I think they view the film as an exciting train movie.

Anyway, this week we had a big snow storm that caused us to cancel our field trip to the fire station, and I could see how disappointed the kids felt. When Hannah mentioned wanting hot chocolate at breakfast (a rare treat for them), I suddenly felt inspired. While they ate, I found a free train pattern here and then printed and cut out the pieces. I also made each kid a golden yellow ticket like the one in the movie.

After breakfast, I gave the kids the train pieces and let them color and glue it together. Then, we wrote the numbers 1-4 on the cars. Once they finished, I handed them their tickets and put on the soundtrack from the movie. When the conductor yelled, "All Aboard," I checked their tickets and seated them at the table. I wrapped up the activity by serving them hot chocolate when the "Hot Chocolate" song played on the CD.

The kids loved it! They both slept with their train tickets in their beds last night and insisted that Daddy let them watch the movie while I was out last night. I don't think they even remembered that they missed their field trip...