day 244: bear hugs for valentines

day 244 and for those who don't do too much for valentines, i apologise for the next week of valentines inspired creations.  i figured as valentines was so close i should get busy and make some effort to spread the word of st valentine ;)

we are going for an quick and easy valentines gift today as i wean myself back into crafting with schooling!  today i am making polly some valentines for her to gift to her mates ... she's seven so this idea using bear cookies is perfect for her age group.  the idea comes from family fun and is pinned to my st valentines love board on pinterest.

for this project you need some cellophane bags, some teddy bear cookies, ribbon, and some card for tags.  i made up some cute tags for polly that she could then write on to personalise them for her friends.  we then worked together to put the bears in the bags and i tied the ribbon while she wrote on the tags.

outcome:  my favourite part of this creation was spending time with my daughter working on gifts for her friends. she loved the idea of giving her friends something on valentines day and i loved helping her make them :)  definitely do this with your little girls, they will love you for it, it gives them a nice sense of doing something for someone else, and it's not hard so it makes it fun :)

my thanks to family fun for posting this idea, it definitely was fun spending time with my littlest peep making today's creation.

now for the boy child tomorrow ... wonder how that will go, wish me luck and stay tuned for tomorrow's creation, where i attempt to get him in the spirit of 'love' ... do we think i might be pushing @#%&@$% up hill ;)

new zealand give away starts monday :)

A FAVOURITE: LEARNING ABOUT FAMOUS NEW ZEALANDERS

In Social Studies for most of this term we have been learning about famous New Zealander's ... not too in depth but just enough so they can appreciate what people have done to contribute to New Zealand history.  So far we have done Edmund Hillary, Kate Sheppard, Jean Batten, Burt Munroe, and today we introduced Sir Apirana Ngata and the amazing work he did for Maori.  We use the same format each session, they sit on the mat and listen to 5-15 minutes of information about the person in question and then they get a sheet of paper with a box for a drawing relating to the person and some lines for writing about them on.  This worksheet is to reinforce the small amount of knowledge they have gained about this person.  Then they are laminated and put up on the wall with the rest of the famous New Zealander's we have studied.  

While this is a superficial type of learning, I hope it is helping them understand all the different ways people can contribute to history.  Incidentally, the New Zealand History website is a wonderful reference for all things history which relate to NZ!