Every year we celebrate the Moms in our life within my Kindergarten class. I choose the Friday before Mother's Day or the Monday after, depending on how busy the school schedule is. If your school is anything like mine in the last month of school (May) then you know how difficult scheduling this in can be, right?! So here are all the deets on how I put together this popular event in my classroom:
Letter home:
2 weeks before I send
this notice home. (Click for a free editable copy). The helps me when I am making the gifts because sometimes, unfortunatly Mom can't always come and the replacement is an aunt or grandmother... but I'll get to what I do about that a little bit later.
Gifts:
I found this on Pinterest a few years ago and I have made it every year since. I buy the tiles at Lowes for .77 cents each. I also get a sampler of paint from the paint department. I get a blue and a pink. I buy the paint about every 3 years or so because that's how long it takes to use it all. I paint each child's hand (girls are pink, boys are blue) and make the print. Later, I write with a sharpie "A child's hand touches a mothers heart". I usually let the moms know they sell mini easels at Walmart if they want to get one. I tie tulle around the middle also in pink or blue.
The second gift is a thumb print necklace. I use clay left over from making hand print plates that my grade level makes every year and a small heart cookie cutter. I put each child's thumb into the middle of the heart, write their name and paint them blue or pink when they dry. These are usually the moms favorite gifts.
There is also a cute card that includes an
"I love you to pieces" and a questionnaire to fill out. The moms get a kick out of those. The age, height and weight questions are the best! Here is a copy if you would like one. Just click on the picture and right click, save image:
If you would like to download all of the questionnaires for the other female family members, you can do that
here.
Decor:
I don't do much to the actual classroom other than my normal
stuffing straightening up but I do jazz up the tables a bit. I add whatever feminine color butcher paper I can find in the staff room, some die cut flowers (which I collect and reuse year to year) and then put the muffins in the center of the table. In the past, I've made the muffins, but now I just buy them. Sooooo much easier. I'm all about easy, said the teacher who has too many events in her class room. Ha!
Day of event:
The event usually starts within 10 minutes of when school does. I put a sign outside the door for the mama's to wait just a few minutes. When the kids come in, we talk about escorting our moms one by one to their seat and insist mom sit down. It's the cutest thing to say "Johnny, your mommy is here," and they proudly get up and escort their mom to their table. Tears and smiles in moms eyes. Every. Single. Time. While they wait for everyone else to be seated, they have the chance to share their card and gifts with their mom.
I usually have a very good turn out with a handful (5 or less) not able to come. Sometimes they send an aunt or grandma in their place. When this happens, I like to include a gift for them too, just a small one because eventually the students will take home the gifts and give them to Mom when they get home. If Mom is completely absent from their life, then who ever comes gets all the gifts. If noone shows for the child at all (sad face), the other mothers are always more than willing to let those child participate in things with the, they do a very good job of helping those kids to not feel alone. Sometimes, my own mom comes (gasp! Yes, I have a mom, much to the kids shock, haha!) and helps with that too.
After the moms have all arrived and are seated, I say a few things to thank them for coming, tell them about the easels at Walmart I mentioned earlier, and introduce the kids for their teeny tiny performance. We recite the poem
"Walk A Little Slower Daddy", with words changed obviously to Mommy and sing the song "Love you forever" from the book
Love You Forever. It's super short, so we sing it twice but all the mama's cry.
After the performance, the kids go back to their mama's and I read 2 stories on the document camera. The first one is
Love You Forever, which I can't get through without bawling my eyes out so I had my student teacher read it this year, and
The Kissing Hand. After reading, I tell the parents that this is their time to read with their child the story they brought, enjoy muffins, juice and coffee, as well as receive a guided tour of everything in the classroom given by their child. I walk around taking cute close up pictures of each mom and child and mingling. It's so much fun!
I started this event 6 years ago in my classroom all my own, and still to this day, I am the only kinder teacher to do it every year. I ask myself why I torture myself with the stress, but when it comes to the day of the event, I know why. The parents and kids love it. I love it. So I will continue to do it every year.
