Yes, They Were All Sharpening Their Butterflies.
To me — February is the month of love.
I keep my Valentine’s flag flying on the porch and all my love coffee mugs on my counter all 28 days.
This post is about a week late, but it is in keeping with my month long celebrate the red-construction-paper-heart feeling.
Last week, as room mom I helped out with the Valentine’s party in my son’s class.
His teacher traditionally does a pancake breakfast every year, so I agreed to bring my griddle and cook pancakes with her husband.
I thought it might be fun to do a craft. Which left me frantically searching Pinterest on the 13th. I settled on these guys because they looked Valentiney and something we could tackle in a few minutes.
I headed up to the Dollar Tree and found all my supplies. Now I’m not a craft maven so I don’t usually have the confidence to improvise but I saw these cute pencils with pink and red hearts on them. I thought they’d be more festive than the craft sticks.
At home, I put one together in a trial run.
It was perfect.
* * *
We got to school early and helped set up the griddles. The students started arriving as did the other moms.
Our pancake batter was late so we decided to set up a craft station to manufacture my adorable pencils.
Except when I started taking out the supplies, it became clear that I left half of them at home. I only had one bag of eyes, one bag of hearts, one bag of candy, one bag of pipe cleaners and NO CUTE ADORABLE heart pencils.
Pooh. Pooh. And double pooh.
Never fear. We rounded up more pencils – the boring yellow kind — and I said a prayer that the supplies would last like the bible story of the little boy’s two fish and five loaves feeding the thousands.
My fellow room moms got to work.
While I searched for those danged pencils.
Yes, much to my amazement, the children excitedly crowded around and waited their turn to make a cute treat sans the cute pencil.
“I sharpened my butterfly,” Christian proudly told me.
They all ran over to the sharpener and sharpened their butterflies. They loved those danged things.
All I kept thinking about was how much cuter they would have been with the right pencils.
But you know what, it didn’t matter — they thought they were terrific.
It didn’t matter that Mr. Teacher’s Husband showed up an hour late because of a batter calamity.
We made pancakes.
Many were made and many were consumed. Along with bacon and orange juice.
A great time was had by all.
In spite of
Or maybe because of — the yellow pencils.
Ever had a class party catastrophe?
Linking up for iPPP with Greta @GFunkified and Sarah at @The Sunday Spill.
That looks like so much fun! Reminds me of the good old days helping out in the classroom… good times! The butterfly pencils were a great idea.
That does not sound like a catastrophe to me at all, but like a “blast was had by all” kind of party!
I have to admit that I’m the grinch of Valentine’s Day, but I also have to admit that this is a great story, great craft idea that even I could do and pancakes are always good anyway 😉
And yes – I would love to meet up in Vegas! We’ll be there from the 20th to the 30th, staying with family and we have a car, so I’m flexible! Let me know (you can email me at auerjung (at) yahoo.com
Love that you improvised. I would have totally obsessed on not having the cute pencils! You did good Momma.
xoxo tiffani
Oh, it sounds like they had a blast, heart pencils or yellow ones! I love helping in my kids’ class with stuff like that. But we parents definitely care more about the details than the kids do. 🙂
That looks like so much fun! (Sharpening their butterflies – how great!) And pancakes and bacon and orange juice is just the icing on the cake. 🙂
I LOVE the crafts! And my kids never had a full blown breakfast for Valentine’s Day party at school. I’ll admit.. I really, really miss the elementary school parties.
Kids so don’t care as much as we do! And a pancake breakfast? That teacher rocks!
you know, this is an excellent example of making the best of a situation. Improvising is the story of my life. And it teaches kids to roll with it…or maybe they were helping to teach you to roll with it? 🙂 Love.
I’m impressed! and the picture with the bunny ears? Classic!
Glad to know I’m not the only one putting together crafts & Valentines on the 13th! That is definitely a cute craft, too. I wonder if it could be adapted for Easter……..
ooo that looks like fun! And so crafty! I have always liked when I’ve helped out my son’s kindergarten class. They’re all actually so excited that you’re there!