Valentines Day

[PennyS78]

Hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day. I did but was completely exhausted.  My kids at school were wild but good and I got off early on my second job to cook a big shrimp boil for my family. It was so good my husband and son laughed at me saying I did a little happy dance with every bite.

[AnnieBrooke]

The class had been talking about endangered species (though they would not have had to for the activity we did on Valentine's Day to work).  My son was particularly interested because the previous year, his preschool class had raised money at a "sale" of their art (i.e., parents came in and donated money by buying their child's painting) to sponsor a penguin via one of the wildlife charities.  This gave my son confidence that he knew all about helping endangered wildlife.

So when it came up as a topic this year, we looked on the National Wildlife Federation's website for a list of things kids can do to help animals.  One of the things was to put out nesting materials for birds.  They suggested using the kind of mesh sacks that oranges come in the store, filling them with stuff like straw, hair, and other natural materials, and then hanging them in trees for the birds to come and get.  So my son and I assembled four bins of straw (bought a bale for $4 at the feed store), pine needles (from a lodgepole pine so quite long), wool (a neighbor keeps sheep), and dog hair (from our dog's groomer), and a smaller container with short pieces of string (no piece longer than 6" or it's dangerous for the birds).  We brought mesh bags (bought on eBay for 12 cents each) and twine for tying the tops, and even brought some plastic sacks to send the bags home in so kids would not get their backpacks full of loose straw and dog hair.  All the kids (in groups of three or so -- other activities were going on at the same time) made a sack, eeeewed at the dog hair, and were wary of the pine needles (because they are called needles! and they are pokey!)  The activity could also be done just on the basis of helping birds, without the endangered-species connection.  I happened to have bins because I've been trying to organize paperwork, they were about the size of banker's boxes and the kids went halfway through the straw, all the way through the dog hair, barely through the wool and almost not touching the surface of the pine needles.  Anyway, it was pretty fun, a little confusing (I had the image of someone wanting to do a bag all of string pieces and us being out of string by child number two) and the kids were willing.  I just hope the birds don't stay away in droves!  We're a semi-suburban district with a lot of greenery, and I have the feeling the birdies have plenty of stuff available to make nests with already!  Not to mention that the mesh sacks were not very stretched out (they had not previously been used to store oranges, so the little diamonds of space between the mesh were pretty slender) and so maybe we should have warned the kids to try pulling the pieces of hair or wool halfway out before hanging.  But what the heck, it won't be the first time a brilliant kindergarten project lays an egg in actual practice.  lol

[PennyS78]

Would love to know about the activity you did. I work with 4 year olds. We have 26 in our class but we go all day.

[AnnieBrooke]

I did double duty so to speak with my son's kindergarten -- doing a complicated activity for my son's class' Valentine's Day party as a parent volunteer, and our activity was so popular that they asked us to come back for the afternoon kindergarten and do it again.  Wild but good is exactly how these kids were.  It was really charming to see the kids passing out valentines.  I have had romantic Valentine's Days in the past, and ho-hum ones, but never one surrounded by 6-year olds and doing bird-nesting-materials bags.  It was heartfelt and fun.

[PennyS78]

That sounds nice too.

[MissTrevia]

I wish I had been there for the shrimp! Sounds yummy. I prepared a four course meal for my family and served them each course myself. It was fun and they loved it.