Teacher Appreciation :: Ms. Josie's Gift

This is Buddy Boy’s last year at Infinite Bounds. People say that Disney’s the “happiest place on earth”. Those people have never been to Infinite Bounds. IB is where my kiddos go to “school” a couple days a week so I can desperately cling to the little bit of sanity that I have left I can plan gourmet meals and keep my home immaculately clean. IB rocks! It isn’t swanky or nicely decorated. As a matter of fact, it’s a little run down – and not in that shabby-chic kinda way. More like in that rode-hard-and-put-away-wet kinda way. But that’s OK, because every inch of frayed carpet, every knick in the walls tells a story of pure, unadulterated joy. (Oh, and I should say that this is NOT the school that threw their own ridiculous teacher appreciation week-long party that I was complaining about last month.)

IB is actually a gymnastics training center. All day long, young gymnasts flip, balance, spin and fly until they get it just right. That all happens in the gym. Around the perimeter of the gym are small classrooms for little kiddos. They learn their colors & ABC’s. They sing songs and get all messy with shaving cream finger painting. And when it’s time to work those wiggles out, they head into the gym and go crazy.

The best part about IB is the staff. Buddy Boy’s been going there for almost 3 years now, and in that time, I’ve never seen the staff with anything but shit-eating grins on their faces. They’re all just so stinkin’ happy that you’re there. Every child and every parent is greeted by name…every time. They ask you how your weekend was. They tell you you look pretty today (when you know you stink and you’re running on 3 hours of sleep). They love you, and they absolutely adore your child. Your child is the greatest kid they’ve ever met. And while it sounds like a load of crap, it’s not. They really mean this. Really. It’s crazy how friendly and loving everybody is.

Next week, he’ll graduate from the Happiest Place on Earth. His teacher, Ms. Josie has it all worked out and it’s going to be great. (I’m sure I’ll spend the whole ceremony hiding behind my camera so no one will see me bawling like a baby.) In the fall, Buddy Boy will start real school where all the joy and creativity will be systematically sucked from his soul. But in the meantime, he still has a few precious days left in this incredible environment. I recently learned that Ms. Josie is struggling to make ends meet, and this broke my heart not just a little. So o I decided to do a little fund raiser for her. I’m having the kiddos make a paperchain out of the money we collect. The kids are having a blast keeping the secret and making the chain. We’re going to put it in a huge box and present it to her at graduation. I also want to make a big card to go along with it. But oddly, I find myself at a loss for words. So, I’m turning to all you creative writers out there. Come up with something for me. Please. Something about how early care providers are an important link in the chain of a child’s life. Something that will connect the links in the money chain to how fondly we all feel towards Ms. Josie. So any great ideas for me? Any catchy little phrases or isms? I’m open to suggestions.

Teacher Appreciation Gifts (And a Paper Flower Tutorial)

I’m reliable. You can count on me. Really. You can count on me not to listen to my voicemail. You can count on me to show up 15 minutes late. And you can count on me to be poorly prepared for just about everything. But in the end, I will get the job done. I will make a huge mess in the process, but I’ll get it done and I’ll have fun doing it.

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week in our town. And surprise! I’m unprepared. Teacher Appreciation week is a big deal in these parts. I mean seriously, how else can all the stay-at-home moms around here one-up each other?!  We love our teachers.  Buddy Boy goes to preschool 3 days a week. This week’s activities include:

• Monday:  Teacher breakfast and flower presentation.  Moms make Teachers breakfast, kiddos give flowers to Teachers. (I will be up at some un-godly hour tomorrow morning making my secret weapon cinnamon chip scones. I will not be making a mad dash to the florist section of my local grocery store because the roses in my yard are amazing right now.)
• Wednesday:  Teacher lunch. Moms will be preparing salads, casseroles & desserts. (I’m off the hook for this one.) 
• Friday:  Teacher lunch and Teacher dinners. More moms preparing more salads, casseroles and desserts for that day's lunch. AND still more moms preparing meals to stock the teachers’ freezers. (Because…well…I guess preschool teachers can’t cook…or maybe preschool teachers are so incapacitated by the end of the year that they can no longer take care of themselves.) 
• Monday thru Friday:  Early release for Teachers. Moms come into the classroom and substitute-teach for a couple of hours each day so the real teachers can go home early. (Because that's what I pay all this money for -- so moms, not teachers, can teach my kid.)

I don’t know…I’m all for teachers, but it seems like overkill to me. What happened to the days where the kids saved their milk money, pooled it all together and then went out and bought Teacher a month’s supply of BubbleYum?

Personally, I’m a fan of the handmade Teacher gift. Something that comes from the heart and the hand of the kiddo. There will be a handmade gift from us this year, just like there was last year.  We made these awesome paper flowers last year and I think they turned out great.  Here’s a little tutorial.  It was tons of fun and the kiddos got to participate in just about every step. In other words, it really is a “kid craft” – suitable for a 2yo and a 4yo.  Here’s the list of what we used. We had most of this stuff just hanging around the house:

• Paper. I used old packing paper, because I’m all about reusing.
• Squeeze bottles. I used old water bottles.
• Acrylic paint. The kiddo paint is too chalky for me, so we used the real deal.
• Kid scissors
• Hole punches. I used a double hole punch and a 2” punch.
• Wire cutters/needle nose pliers
• Thin wire cut into 2” lengths. I used floral wire because I had it lying around, but any thin wire would work.
• Buttons
• Thick paper-wrapped wire stems (available in the floral section of your craft store)
• Glue (any kind – I used Elmer’s school glue)
• Plastic “pony” beads (I used clear because I didn’t have beads that matched my papers.
• Floral tape (optional)
• Scenting oil. You can use essential oils, your own perfume, even a drop of vanilla from your spice cabinet will work.

First we taped down sheets of paper, filled squeeze bottles with a dollop of acrylic paint mixed with about a cup of water. We shook up the paint and squeezed, splatted and splooshed it onto the paper. OK, so some of it got squeezed other places too. Hey, messy = fun, right?

Once the paper dried, the kids cut out circles. What kid doesn't love to play with scissors?! And for this project, the more irregular the cutting and the less exact the size, the better. It's a win/win. While the kids were cutting their circles, I punched 2" circles out of used tissue paper in coordinating colors. I also used the double punch to punch holes 'near' the center of each circle. Again, lack of precision gives a better end result, so kiddos strong enough to operate the punch could participate in this step as well.

Next, I threaded a button and 6 paper circles (alternating painted paper and tissue paper) onto the thin floral wire and twisted the wire on the back side to hold everything together.

This was Buddy Boy’s favorite part. Crumple everything up into little balls creating “buds”.

Then I attached each bud to a paper-wrapped stem with a drop of glue and slid a pony bead onto the stem to secure it all and give it a nice finished look. You could cover all this up with floral tape, but I couldn't find any 'craft' color tape to match my stems, so I just left it as it was. After the glue dried, we carefully unfurled our flowers.

The last step was to apply a drop of scent oil to each flower.

Voila!! A sweet smelling bouquet for teachers. We used them to dress up the outside of plain brown paper handle bags filled with homemade cookies.

Flowers for Teacher

Schools out for summer! So you know what I was doing all last week...working on teacher gifts. Now I'm a firm believer that gifts given to teachers should come from the kids, not the parents. Sure, I'll throw in a gift card to go along with it -- to express my appreciation. But I think the kids need to be involved with it too. So of course this means hand made gifts. This year we gave our teachers flowers and cookies. Not just any flowers and not just any cookies. Handmade scented paper flowers and some awesome homemade shortbread.

Credit where credit is due: The inspiration for these pretty little packages came from two fellow Etsians. I really owe these ladies a debt of gratitude for the hours of fun the kiddos & I had creating our version of their fantastic flowers.

Delightfuldeceits fantastic Brown Bag Flowers - what a great thing to do to an old paper bag!! Her cards are beautiful too. She really knows how to make treasure out of trash.

ChelseaVantol's (you may know her as PaperCakes on Twitter) Pretty Paper Posies. Her shop's just so much colorful fun. Check out her craft kits -- little paper parties in a box.

And then there's the chef at The Pelican Inn who (years ago) so generously shared her shortbread recipe with me -- and this was no small act of kindness. It had to be translated (from Russian, I believe), converted to US weights & measures, and scaled back to a size reasonable for family consumption. It's just the most scrumptious stuff.

So thank you, ladies, for helping me & the kiddos thank another great group of ladies. And yes, my kiddos really did most of the work on those flowers. Need proof?