Grinch Themed Movie Day

Normally I do my themed movie nights on the weekends, but we made a special exception this week. We had some special family members who wanted to attend, so we decided to have a Grinchy Thursday instead!

I set up a little the day before. I hung a banner, we got these cute little Whoville trees from Sprouts, and I made a balloon garland Whoville tree! The balloon garland was actually super simple. I blew up balloons, threaded a big sewing needle with fishing line, and ran the fishing line through the tied end of the balloon after I’d blown them up. To get it to stay on the wall, I used a few command hooks. I just looped the fishing line around the hook a couple of times to make sure it was secure. To add in the “ornaments” I blew up the balloons a lot smaller, and used glue dots to stick them in between the bigger green ones. 

We started our day with grinchy green waffles. This is a Kodiak Cake mix and if you’ve never tried anything by them you are missing out. It’s packed with lots of protein, too, so it makes for a fabulous breakfast for my hungry kiddos. I added a little food coloring to the mix to make ours green. 

After breakfast I decided to actually be the Grinch. 😂 My kids had made such a crazy mess in the playroom so before they could do anything fun they had to help me clean it up! No fun until it’s done! 

When we finished (over 45 minutes later 🤯) we brought out our fake snow sensory tubs. I made this a couple weeks ago and we’ve played in it a few times. Molly really likes playing with her Frozen people and Nolan likes using his PJ Masks characters. To throw a Grinch spin on it, I read them the book and asked them to try to build Mount Crumpit. Nolan liked using the bulldozer to bulldoze the snow into the mountain! Molly enjoyed stirring it. 🤪

Cleanup for the fake snow is pretty simple, just vacuum it up! And as a bonus, since there’s baking soda in it, it acts as a natural cleaner as well. Smells so clean too. ☺️

Once the snow was cleaned up, the kids watched the original animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas while I made lunches. Molly really enjoyed it and was cuddled up to Nolan during the scary parts. So cute!!

For lunch we had chicken and cheese quesadillas on spinach tortillas (and with pre-shredded rotisserie chicken-my favorite lunch hack!), and I used and edible marker to draw on the Grinch’s face! We had an avocado tree and some “snow” (vanilla Greek yogurt) as well!

After lunch is Molly’s nap time. Once she was down, our extra special visitors came. Our Aunt TT and BawBaw showed up! Nathan was already here, so we had a little family time and then we did a directed drawing of the Grinch’s face. This was always one of my favorite things to do with my third graders at school!

When Molly woke up we got set up for our science experiment. Nolan LOVES science, so I knew he would enjoy this. The idea is to make the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes! I drew a heart on a green balloon, filled it with baking soda, and poured some vinegar into a 2 liter bottle. You carefully put the baking soda filled balloon onto the mouth of the bottle without letting any spill in. Then, Nolan was able to lift the balloon to let the baking soda fall into the vinegar. When they reacted, it made a gas, which filled up the balloon! It was neat and Nolan wanted to do it multiple times. Don’t be like me and try to do it without a funnel though. I tried to put the balloon in a small cup to fill it up, and stretched the opening too much and created a small hole. So the air leaked out when we did it the first time. After that I found a funnel and it went much smoother!

The next activity was Pin the Heart on the Grinch. I was NOT expecting this to be such a hit but Nolan thought it was absolutely hysterical. 🤷🏻‍♀️😂 He loved seeing the silly spots he put the heart, haha! He loved it so much we had to stop because we were being too loud and Daddy was working upstairs. 🙈 Oops. 

Daddy made it downstairs for a few minutes and was able to eat with us! We had Roast Beast, Who Hash, Garlic in Your Soul Rolls, Grinch fruit kabobs, and a couple of sweets. Nolan made the kabobs and it was his favorite part. He felt pretty special getting to help me “cook”. 😉 I think my favorite part was the Roast Beast roll ups, I might have to make them just for a normal dinner soon! I used a spinach and herb tortilla, mixed a little cream cheese and Dijon mustard together and spread a very thin layer on the tortilla, then layered roast beef and provolone cheese on top. Rolled them up tight and cut them in half! The Who Hash was just hash browns with some melted cheese on top. We turned the movie back on while we ate. 

After eating we had one last craft. Y’all know I love an ornament. This is one I did every year in my classroom! He just turns out so cute. 😍 Aunt TT has said for years that she loved it and wanted one, so we made one for everyone to have! 

We finished out our Grinch day taking a couple of silly pictures on the Grinch Cam app. You take selfies and can use different filters to look like the Grinch, Cindy Lou, etc. Super cute! I think my favorite is Nolan singing. 😂

It was a fun day, and most importantly I got to talk to Nolan and Molly about Christmas meaning more than just presents. A great reminder for us all! Merry Christmas!