When I was selected to be a part of a sponsored post for Collective Bias celebrating The Little Mermaid toys and #DisneyPrincessPlay, I felt inspired to put together a play day that would celebrate all of Zion's fun personality traits and combine many of her favorite activities. There are few things that my daughter, Zion, loves more than a day at the beach. Right up there with the sand, water and sunshine is her undeniable love of pretend play. She is both creative and imaginative, as well as sensitive and daring in her play.
Our supplies for this Little Mermaid inspired Inside Beach Fun Day included the Disney Little Mermaid Story Play Set found at Walmart, The Little Mermaid story book and, of course, an Ariel dress up outfit, fit for my little princess herself, and completed with Ariel's princess tiara. We also grabbed some "Under the Sea" inspired craft supplies and baking supplies.
One of Zion's favorite pretend activities is to set up an "inside beach" which was inspired by Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood on PBS. So our first activity (after getting dressed up in our Disney Princess outfit) was setting up our beach for the day. We used a sand colored sheet for our sandy beach, a beach towel and beach toys, The Little Mermaid figurines and water colored clothes and towel for the ocean.
How cute are these Little Mermaid toys!? I am a sucker for the Sebastian toy as he is definitely my favorite character from the movie. I love how the story set even includes the villainous Ursula and the loveable sheep dog, Max. Zion's favorite is, Ariel, of course! She'd rather keep Ursula out in the ocean far away from her serene little beach.
While we played in our pretend sand, we enjoyed the soundtrack of the movie, which we were able to stream. When the boisterous "Poor Unfortunate Souls" played, Zion asked me, "Why does Ursula sound like a man when she sings?" Haha, out of the mouth of kiddos. We definitely had some laughs about that. Even as I write this I still have "Kiss the Girl" playing in the background of my mind.
I had originally suggested to Zion that we watch The Little Mermaid movie during our beach party, but she asked that we read the story version instead this time around. We will be adding The Little Mermaid Collector's Edition to our movie library when it comes out on Blu-Ray (for the first time) October 1st so that we can have a special viewing party - it is one of my favorite movies from my childhood!
After our story time, we got our craft on with some glittery foam sea stickers. Arts and crafts are always a huge hit in our home and I love seeing Zion branch out in her creativity. For this Little Mermaid inspired "Under the Sea" craft, I had expected Zion to just stick to placing a few of the foam stickers on our heavy construction paper, but what she ended up with is just so awesome! By placing multiple stickers on top one another she built this gorgeous 3D scene. I would have never, in my methodical type-a world, come up with that result! She was pretty excited about it too, and you can tell it was hard to get her to hold it still long enough to share it with you.
We couldn't end our Inside Beach Fun Day without a little refreshment inspired by our theme. So we baked gluten-free mini chocolate cupcakes and decorated them with light green and blue frosting, pearls and some of the yellow glitter foam stickers. These cupcakes would make a perfect addition to a Little Mermaid themed birthday party or even a beach themed baby shower. Did I mention that Zion has picked up my love for baking? Yeah, she loves to bake and cook with me - which I fully embrace because it was one of the things I was most looking forward to doing with her as she became old enough to participate.
As we wrapped up our inside beach fun day, we couldn't leave without a swim in the ocean. This Little Mermaid princess had a blast "splashing and swimming" and giggling all the while as she took a dip in our pretend sea.
Have you ever had a pretend play day with your kids? Which Disney Princess does your little one love the most?
For more great Little Mermaid playdate inspiration check out our "Under the Sea" Pinterest board: