The Magic of Education: Disney Parks in the Classroom - Magic Kingdom Edition

As a Teacher, it is always hard to find a balance between creating the lesson plans around what you want and what you have to. You want to be able to incorporate the things you love, but you never know how, where, when, and in what was to appropriately do so without infringing on the academic integrity of your very well planned lesson.

One of my hardest things about becoming a teacher was that I wanted so badly to incorporate the Disney Parks in my classroom but I didn't know how. Sure, I could have easily decorated my classroom themed to the parks, but I wanted to be able to integrate the park into lessons where I could. I firmly believe that the Disney Parks are filled with unlimited educational power in every single attraction, so there are always ways to stick them into my lesson somewhere.

I struggled day and night to figure out how on this magical earth am I going to incorporate what I love into the job that I love? Well... I figured that out. And surprisingly, not the hard way.

First and foremost, I know that a lot of children have not been to the Disney Parks and they would not understand what I am talking about, so I know to stick strictly to designing attractions, the Imagineers, and explaining the attractions to my students who have never been. They are able to understand fully the different aspects of an attraction, such as who designs and builds it, where it is located, and what the plot of the attraction is.

I tend to do these lessons during a part of the day where I choose to teach my students about something fun and interesting, and I plan an entire fun and individual or team building activity around it. I use this opportunity to teach my students about the different aspects of the Disney Parks.

My absolute favorite lesson that I ever did was talk about Imagineers like Joe Rohde and Tony Baxter. I showed them examples of their creations with the parks, and of course, they had a lot of questions for them that they expected me to ask them as if I knew them! (Side note: I ended up meeting Joe Rohde at D23 Expo 2019 and was able to get answers to some of their most pressing questions. For those who were wondering, his favorite animal on Kilimanjaro Safaris is the Rhino.) They became very invested in the work of the Imagineers, so I assigned them to a team building challenge: After putting them into groups, using the toys and materials we have around the classroom, create your own themed attraction, make sure to included a central theme, a ride vehicle, and a story. One of my favorites was a group used a bunch of Lincoln Logs to make log cabins and a ride through story the life of Abraham Lincoln (I then directed them to "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" at Disneyland, and they were just as amazed as I was the first time I saw it)!

I made each lesson easier by sticking to one park or attraction for an extended period of time so my students can become familiar with it, and I first and foremost began with the Magic Kingdom. I began by showing them a fun tilt-shift video (which you can view below), which they requested to watch more than once, and of course I obliged! We looked at different blueprints of the castle, and talked about ways that they could have built the castle. I then branched them out to the different lands of Magic Kingdom park, and we talked about what they represented and the attractions inside of them. I then tasked them with a simple question, "what land would you put an attraction in and what would your attraction be about?". Kids have such a wonderful imagination, and their responses really got me thinking about the kinds of activities we could be doing in the class to stimulate these wild imaginations. Disney isn't just about the magic, it's also an imaginative science that can be studied and stretched out so far with enough material to circle the Earth 1,000 times over, and that same phrase can be applied to the wisdom of a child's imagination.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyZfIlxwsfI - Disney Parks Tilt Shift Video

There are many ways to incorporate the Magic Kingdom into the classroom, and these are just a few of the different activities that I did:

-Design your own Magic Kingdom: what science, fantasy, future, and history based attractions would you create to include in the park?

-Imagineer for A Day Group Activity: Each member of the group is assigned to a specific task, and you must work together to develop an attraction including: story, design, ride vehicle/mechanisms, and setting. (The kids really enjoyed this one! Putting kids minds together makes some pretty amazing things!).

-Fixer Upper- How would you improve an attraction or aspect of the park we just learned about?

-It really is a small world! - How many countries can you name? How many languages can you name? What is a fact you know or learned about this country?

-Carousel of Progress: We used this attraction to discuss American History! We discussed how history and technology developed over time, and we also noted language changes and style changes. This helped my students to more deeply understand American History in a simplified, easy to understand way. They enjoyed trying to spot the differences between each scene, which helped my students use their associative skills to be able to associate certain aspects of American Life with different periods.

-Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Math Test!- Using smaller flashlights, two students would face off in front of math problems. The first person to shine their light on the correct answer gets a point!

My students also very much liked a simple song book that I made with the lyrics to "it's a small world". We will usually sing this song when I feel that our class may be struggling or it has been a rough day. It always drives home the fact that it truly is a small world after all and that we should always care for our friends. The bright colors I used, as well as the simple and easy to read text allows my students to remain visually interested and appeals to all ages and learning difficulties that my students may have. Here is a page from the book:

There is so many more that I can list, it really could continue on forever! I find that both using the Disney Parks attractions to inspire imagination but also using the attraction mechanisms and familiar characters to further drive different educational concepts helps my students to understand and focus on the material more. Media and pop culture play an important role in Education, and it is important to present the material in a way that is comfortable and familiar to the students, because they will tend to trust familiar faces and cartoon characters advising them in various ways! Media is one of the keys to unlocking the potential of a child, it just needs to be released. By incorporating the Disney Parks into my classroom, I'm allowing a familiar and safe environment to be spread throughout my classroom, which helps students blossom.

Thank you all so much for reading! Stay tuned for a more compiled list of my various different Disney Parks lesson plans, as well as a curriculum guide and lesson plan! But for now, I'll see ya real soon!