In March of 2020, we were eagerly waiting to depart on our Spring Break trip to Hawaii. We couldn’t wait to sink our toes into some soft, warm sand. But a few days prior to our scheduled departure, we chose to cancel our trip, because of the COVID pandemic. Needless to say, we spent the break sitting around our house, trying to come to terms with how suddenly and drastically our lives were going to change for the foreseeable future.
I’m happy to report that this year was a little bit different. We still spent our break at home, but I had ample time to pre-plan a fun Virtual Spring Break trip for the whole family. A trip that allowed us to travel the globe and visit a brand new place every single day! Each day included some virtual reality (VR) exploration and expeditions, a documentary, a snack/dessert that was representative of the locale, and a themed craft. When it came time to eat dinner, we decided to fully embrace the vacation, and support our favorite local restaurants, by picking up take-out (from an establishment that was also representative of the day’s locale). We capped off each evening with a movie that showcased the place, or culture, that we had explored that day!
Since we were still a bit disappointed that our previous trip to the beach had been canceled, we decided to kick-off our virtual vacation with a trip to the ocean!
Virtual Spring Break: Day One – Ocean
Ocean VR Expeditions & Explorations
We started our day with a visit to the Georgia Aquarium webcams – where we spied lots of colorful fish, beluga whales, a giant whale shark, silly sea lions, and joyful jellyfish. And then we embarked on this virtual diving adventure with giant manta rays in Mexico. We were pleasantly surprised when a few dolphins decided to join us too!
From there, we popped over to our Google Expeditions app, to check out their Ocean Safari and Life in the Deep Ocean virtual reality tours. We got up close and personal with several interesting ocean creatures! If you have yet to check out this Google app…it’s a must! We used it several different times during the week.
Our daughter loves Annie and Moby (from BrainPOP Jr.) so we also watched their quick video on Ocean Habitats. We learned about the different zones in the oceans, and which sea creatures live in each zone.
Ocean Documentary
We’ve become pretty obsessed with Disney Nature documentaries over the past couple of years…so it was no surprise when our daughter chose to watch Disney Nature’s Oceans documentary on Disney+. The film is narrated by Pierce Brosnan, and features marine iguanas, horseshoe crabs, humpback whales, dolphins, sea turtles, great white sharks…and much, much more!
The way that the Disney Nature documentaries are filmed, and the footage that they share, is just incredible. It’s like you’re right there in the water with them! Our eyes were glued to the screen the entire time. There were giggles…and lots of ooh’s and ah’s. And we learned several more neat facts about some of our favorite ocean creatures!
Watercolor Seahorse Craft
When it was time to get creative, we busted out our watercolor paints, paper, and oil pastels…and followed The Bird Feed NYC’s instructions for their Eric Carle-Inspired Watercolor Seahorse Collage.
We loved decorating our seahorses with oil pastels…and painting our seahorses (and wavy backgrounds) with lots of bright, beautiful colors. It was the perfect ocean-day craft! And one that will always spark fond memories of our virtual Spring Break trip to the sea!
P.S. My husband wasn’t in a painting mood that day…so he worked on a seahorse scratch art project!
Ocean Day Dinner
Our ocean day dinner featured a variety of seafood dishes from a local restaurant. But I should probably preface this with the fact that since we live in Colorado, we don’t normally eat a whole lot of seafood, because it’s just not as fresh and delicious. So…this was our daughter’s first experience with seafood (other than fish) that she actually remembers. She wasn’t a huge fan. π But it was fun to try something different, and the food was tasty.
We enjoyed a lobster roll BLT with a side of hushpuppies, some grilled Mexican-garlic shrimp, and a gulf grouper that was cooked in parchment paper. The grouper was our favorite!
Ocean Day Dessert
Before dinner, we all popped into the kitchen to whip up the necessary components for our ocean day dessert. We made some instant vanilla pudding, and stirred in some blue food coloring to create ocean water. I failed to consider the yellow hue of the vanilla pudding, so it ended up being green…but it was still delicious. We also tossed some golden Oreos into our food processor…until they reached a nice, sandy consistency. When it was time for dessert, we added our ocean water (pudding) to a small glass, sprinkled some sand (crushed Oreos) on top, and capped it all off with a colorful paper umbrella!
We made these sand-filled pudding cups before…for our daughter’s Beach-Themed Second Birthday! Some other fun ideas to incorporate into this tasty treat are: Swedish Fish (in the water), or sunbathing Teddy Grahams (on the sand). You could even squish a Teddy Graham into a gummy Lifesaver, and plop it right down into the pudding!
Ocean Day Movie
We planned to let our daughter stay up later than usual every night, and watch a movie that was related to the place we had visited that day. Our ocean day movie choices included: The Little Mermaid, Moana, Finding Nemo, and Finding Dory.
But after dinner and dessert that evening, it became very clear that our daughter needed to get some sleep. Maybe it was all of the excitement from our first day of virtual vacation…and the anticipation of what was coming next…but we didn’t stay up and watch an ocean-themed movie that night. Just trying to keep it real.
And just like that, the first day of our Virtual Spring Break was over. We thoroughly enjoyed our ocean adventure! And we can’t wait to schedule another real-life beach vacation…once we are all vaccinated and it is safe to travel again. Will our daughter insist on packing her giant shark head mask? Probably! π
Are you starting to wonder what special locale was next on our travel itinerary? Come back tomorrow to find out where we (virtually) traveled to next!
