I made the mistake of telling my 2 year old daughter months in advance about our upcoming Beaches Resorts vacation in Turks and Caicos for #BeachesMoms. She talks about it all.the.time. Seriously, never has she latched onto anything as she has “Going to Abby Beach”. (Abby = Abby Cadabby). It is super exciting though and we are all just about jumping out of our skin in anticipation.

In hopes of giving my daughter something more concrete to countdown to vacation with, I created this Sesame Street countdown chain. I will again use it to countdown to her Sesame Street birthday party in November. You can use this chain to countdown to anything: a trip to Beaches Resorts, Sesame Place, a birthday, etc. The original idea was to countdown from the 1 month mark, have a rhyme on each day, etc. Well….none of that happened. I just didn’t get it together. So instead, we are counting down from 10 days (and not rhyming on most).

The sun and beach: I used my Cricut machine to cut out the sun and orange circle. I then printed off a 3.5×5 Beaches Resorts/ Sesame Street picture on regular printer  paper. I cut the picture in the shape of a half circle. After cutting sand colored paper in an equal sized half circle, I put it all together. The “beach” looks pretty boring right now. I intentionally left it that way as one of our countdown activities is to glue seashells, sand castles and crabs onto it.

 
  
Image owned by Beaches Resorts &/0r Sesame Street and used with permission.                                                                                                                          

The chain: The chain ended up being so much more work than it should have. Once I get an idea stuck in my head though, I’m determined. Each link is made of a 1” strip of card-stock. My intention was to also cut out the character faces on my Cricut. However, my machine doesn’t do well with cuttings that small. Long story short, I ended up creating rub-ons and using those. Printers don’t print white, so I also printed on paper, cut the eyes out, and glued those under the rub-ons. My suggestion to you- just draw them or use stickers! You can print the faces and Sesame Street Font from here: Sesame Street Font & Face Printables

 

I love the Sesame Street font I found here (I especially like this font site because it doesn’t download a bunch of junk to your computer). I used it for the first letter on each day. Seeing which character would start the day’s fun is just as exciting as what we get to do. (printable below)

10. 10 more days and we’ll be searching for sea shells on the beach with Abby!
Let’s use sea shells and decorate the beach above.

9. How will we get to Beaches in Turks and Caicos?
Let’s fly around like airplanes.

8. Big Bird’s waiting in Turks and Caicos to take you bird watching!
Let’s research what kinds of birds we might see on the island.

7. Elmo’s hiding and it’s really cold.
When you find him, he has a drink for you I’m told.

6. Argh! A pirate party the first night we’re there at the biggest water park in the Carribean.
Let’s rustle up our pirate garb!

5. What about this vacation are you most excited about?
Let’s draw a picture of it.

4. Oscar just finished reading all about the Beaches Resort and Turks and Caicos.
Now it’s our turn. Let’s grab the book and scram!

3. Don’t forget your autograph books!
Your Sesame Street friends can’t wait to sign their names in it.

2. I have a really big hunch, today’s fun is in your lunch.

1. Today’s the day!! Hooray, hooray!

Click image to print:

    

Whatever you’re counting down to,
I hope it leads to sunny days!

Disclosure: All opinions expressed above are my own and are in no way influenced by companies or brands mentioned within. Sesame Street characters are owned and copyrighted by Sesame Workshop. All credit and rights belong to them. Ownership of all images shown is credited above the image. Post and page may contain affiliate links and advertising. Thank you for clicking through them! It helps keep Parenting Beyond here for you 🙂

 DIY Sesame Street Countdown Chain + Free Sesame Street Font & Printables