So, last week (on the first day of preschool) the teacher announced the children would be having a Valentine’s Day celebration with activities, games, and food the entire class time.  And, the children would all need to bring in Valentines to share with the class.  Ms. Linda sat the kiddos down and brought out a HUGE file folder filled with a bunch of cards (and not a single one store bought!!) she said were made by students in past classes.

 

 

My.  Goodness.  Made by students?! The cards she paraded in front of us looked like Martha herself made them. Tiny little pieces of handcut foam, googly eyes, pop-ups, patterned lace, creatures, caligraphy?! Did those children even know what kind of cards they were handing out? Did they have any input in the design? Did they even get to help make their own Valentine cards?

 

 

 

I just couldn’t help but think why this teacher was showing a room full of 4 year olds these very Pinterested and ADULT-created cards?! To her credit, she did say the kids could bring “pre-made or store bought” cards, but come on.  This was obviously going to be a homework project for the parents to now try to show each other up and to get their card, er, their kids’ card, in the file folder for next year’s class to fawn over.

 

 

Well, I could have very easily busted open a box of those awesome gender-neutral, non-character, non-kissy-face, $0.08 a box Valentines I bought last April. Or I could have spent the week drowning in Pinterest feeling worse about myself with each repinned post that would no doubt require some sort of power tool, sewing machine, almond paste, packing pallet, or imported french glitter. UGH. For this project, I knew I wanted easy. I wanted fun. But more importantly, I wanted to do this project with my child!

  

Since my son does not care much for candy or sweets (I know, poor me, huh?), and having been a teacher, I really did not want to add on to the mountain of junk the kids would be getting.   I thought Goldfish would be a nice compromise.  Or at least ensure that my son had a ‘treat’ he would be glad to get!  We buy these in bulk at Costco so we had a bag to spare!

Daddy helped out and free-handed an 8″ x 6″ pattern shaped like the Goldfish!  Glad to be married to someone with artistic abilities!

Quite often in the Sunday papers, Office Max advertises with brown paper bags and I always add them to the craft closet, just in case!  GREAT way to repurpose something that would have been tossed!  We traced and cut out 8 fishies from each bag.  The boy is not quite scissor-ready enough for pattern cutting, but he could help to trace the shape.

Used my stockpile of poster paints from my teaching days!  Here’s a quick rehab tip for dried up paint bottles:  Just add hot water to the bottle (about 1/2 way) and let it sit for a bit.  Then shake vigorously and all of the dried globs will begin to dissolve in the liquid.  The paint will be a little thinner than before, but still quite usable!

It was too cold this morning to paint outside, so I braced my OCD with a 2nd cup of coffee and we turned the kitchen into an art studio!  I did eventually remember to put down newspaper, of course, only after cleaning up the spilled red paint.  *sigh*  I’m getting better though!  Last year at this time, there would be no thought of an open paint container in the house!

The boy had a lot of fun painting the fishies!  I somehow thought he might only want to paint each fish one color, but he very quickly began to switch out the brushes and add on more and more color!  We talked about mixing colors and predicting what would happen with the addition of a new color.  (That poor yellow cup didn’t last long.)  We may have to pull out Rainbow Fish and give it a read this week!

 

As the fishies dried, we glued on googly eyes.  I picked these up last fall at the Dollar Tree and we finally had ocassion to use them.  Really makes the fishy face pop, don’t ya think?!

 

While we waited for the rest of the fish to dry, we got to work on the treat bags.  This task could easily have been done in under a minute, but I thought it was important to let the boy help with as much of the project as possible.  He placed two little scoops of the crackers in the sandwich baggies on his own.  This was a great activity to practice hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.  Bringing over the full scoop and judging the opening of the bag with only one hand and not spilling any?!  He got that.

 

Being ever so careful!

 

I couldn’t figure out how to bypass one design flaw:  The back of the fish had print on them!  So, we  glued the finished fishies on dark blue construction paper which made them more card-like anyways and then we made bubbles with black marker.

 

I printed out the message and we glued it to the back of the card!

 

I had originally twist-tied the snack bags, but then couldn’t find a way to attach them cutely to the card without them flopping around.  Taping them flatly worked out great!

 

So, there you have it!   We made 14 really fun Valentines to share with the class tomorrow.  They may not be Pinterest-perfect and they’re not popped-out-of-a-box cool, but the boy and I made them together.  And I think that’s what really matters.  There is some real LOVE being sent with these fishies!  ♥  Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

 

*UPDATE*
YAY!   Our Valentine’s were a BIG hit today with the kiddos, parents, and the teacher!   And I am proud to say, among all of the super-cool store-bought character cards and the totally cute Pinterested Martha cards, ours were the ONLY Valentines that were kid created!  I tell ya what, the look of pride (and the little pink cheeks!) on my son’s face as he heard the compliments and the “ooohs” from everyone and answered questions about how he made them just made this mama’s heart too full!  ♥