HB Day 1: The Story of My Hawkes Bay Day Placemats

This is a great solution ... EVEN for boys ;)

As with all decisions we make, each has its ups and downs. One of the downs for our decision to move to the Hawkes Bay has been "the work compromise". As a home schooling mum, we live on one income, which needless to say we value greatly! My husband, Steve, has a great job that he enjoys located in Auckland and we didn't want to give that up moving here, so we haven't. It's a one hour flight commute he does at the beginning and end of each week and lives in what we affectionately call "the box" while he is in Auckland. It is a tiny room in an apartment building, it isn't ideal but it works well enough for him to continue working in Auckland.

We miss him heaps during the week, but things like Skype, phone calls, and emails really help.  Each day Steve chats with the kids and always asks what they have been up to ... it's fair to say he gets a mixed response to this question depending on how tired the peeps are and how distracted they are by other things ;)  I wanted to make sure that Steve didn't miss out on the everyday things from not only my point of view but also from the peeps.  As always I found the answer on Pinterest!

Positively Splendid had a guest post from Kiki Creates for dinner time doodle mats that were designed to keep kids entertained before dinner was served.  The idea is also pinned to my Ideas for Organisation board on Pinterest.  She has several free designs that are free to print off and laminate for your own peeps.  I loved the placemat she designed as a comic strip so kids could draw the "story of their day".

I figured this was something the peeps would love to do as they enjoy drawing and it would provide a visual aide when they Skype with their Dad and he asks the inevitable question "so what did you get up to today".  I have limited supplies at the moment with the household in storage so I went to the local library and created a comic strip for telling the story of "our Hawkes Bay day" and printed several off for the peeps to use. No laminator at hand so the peeps, are using a new print each day.  Once the laminator finds its way to Otane I will make permanent placemats, which they will use whiteboard markers on and clean off each morning.

My thanks to Positively Splendid and Kiki Creates for sharing this awesome idea. I love ideas that provide kids with different ways of communicating and this one definitely fits that bill!

Pollyanna busy at work .. Uh, I mean play!