Mother's Day

This was a crazy activity for me!

I know you all know about Pinterest. The thing with Pinterest is sometimes a craft looks easy... but it's not. Long story short, I had a craft all picked out for Mother's Day, and this craft (Tootsie Pop flowers in a clay pot) just was determined not to happen. NOTHING went right. I couldn't find basic items, like the flower pieces to slide on the sucker sticks. I found I couldn't afford to get 4-5 Tootsie pops per girl for 15 girls, OR clay pots. Dum Dums and styrofoam cups just weren't cutting it... so I basically started over and had to find a new gift idea.

Which, I hate to do. I like to have a well laid out, months in advance plan. Sigh.

My Mother's Day craft had to adhere to my own, personal "gift craft" rules:

1. Inexpensive
2. Edible component, because I like crafts that have a reason for disappearing.
3. Simple enough for the girls to really do on their own.

After several different tries on Pinterest what I ended up with was more "gift" than craft. It was basically just a cutely wrapped container stuffed with candy. I made a fun little tag, and called it good.

Except (did I mention this activity made me crazy?) that because it was so truly simple it was only going to take about 10 minutes to do. Maybe 20 minutes if the girls were really slow, or maybe even 30 minutes if I made them make it from absolute scratch. But even then.. not a complete activity, even WITH lesson.

A friend suggested adding cinnamon rolls. For some reason this sounded like an amazing idea. Then reality banged on my forehead: it is super hard to make bread in 90 minutes. It is just not going to happen with 15 little helpers and a double or triple batch of dough needed so that everyone can take some home. PLUS the schedule was weird and we are three weeks out from Mother's Day with no activity closer that is available, therefore I can't send it home easily and I can't pass it out easily in a few weeks either. And I don't live in Utah, so I'm not hand delivering them down my block.

What did stick with me is the idea of breakfast. Breakfast in bed for Mother's Day is a thing, right? And that led to this:

Teaching the girls a simple meal they could do on their own (if needed) on Mother's Day. I do have at least one little girl who lives with just her mom and younger brother, so it was important to me that it really be do-able without a lot of adult help.

The microwave is an awesome tool, and it makes really good scrambled eggs as long as you stir them well, and use the power level settings correctly!

I ended up dividing our activity into three mini activities, with groups rotating to each station:

1. Lesson on Mothers and why they are awesome
2. Make a gift for Mom to take home with you tonight
3. Make breakfast, and in the process, learn how to make it for your mom for Mother's Day!

Of course, the making breakfast part took way, way longer than the other two, but we made it work. And all the girls LOVED it. And they were able to make the eggs, make the toast, talk about cleaning up the kitchen, and discuss what to serve alongside the eggs and toast all in 20 minutes or so.

In the kitchen the girls buttered their individual sized microwavable ceramic bowls, cracked their own egg, added the water, salt and pepper, stirred it, and cooked it. They buttered the toast. They poured their own juice. And then they ate it all up. It was really fun!

It was also very intense, because with fifteen girls, even at just 90 seconds microwave time per girl, it was go, go, go, go... the whole time. I had one of the YW helping me with dishes, and supervision, and cleaning, and it was all we could do to get everyone through making and eating their own practice eggs, toast and juice in 75 minutes. I had planned to demonstrate microwaving pre-cooked bacon and arranging the tray to make it look nice... NO TIME FOR THAT!

And that was in addition to other leaders supervising the craft and teaching the lesson. This is not an activity to try with just one person!

Making the gift

( to stretch this out you COULD have the girls do all of this, but I didn't have them make the tubes):

Posterboard (premium, if you can get it, with some heft to it) 22 inches by 22 by 28 inches

Tissue paper (multicolor pack if the girls like to choose), 20 inches by 26 inches

Packing tape

scissors

ruler

Candy or other treats (I set the bags candy out with little sticky notes telling the girls how many pieces of each they could take)

1. Mark your poster board and cut it into strips measuring 5 inches high by 22 inches wide. Save the 3 inch high strip for later.
2. Cut each strip in half to make two 5x11 inch strips
3. Using a tube ( I used a Voss water bottle) roll the poster board into a tube and tape with packing tape.
4. Place each tube on the three inch strip and trace (they will likely all vary slightly) and cut out a circle of poster board which will be the bottom of your tube. Tape it in place with packing tape. PLEASE NOTE: you can skip all these steps if you have "tubes" already, such as empty, clean cans, or orange juice cans, or whatever, but I didn't, and these made a nice size container.
5. Cut your tissue paper in half to make 10 inch by 26 inch long pieces. (shown)
6. Fold your tissue paper strip in half, then in half again, then again (shown)
7. Making sure to cut the sides, cut the tissue paper as shown.
8. Place the tube on the tissue paper, with the base on the uncut side of the tissue. Tape in place.
9. Roll, and tape or use adhesive to close the roll.
10. Fill tube with candy or treats.
11. Use a length of ribbon and tie the tissue paper closed. And that's it! One cutely wrapped sweet treat!

I also made these little tags and punched them with a 2 inch circle punch and added them to the ribbon.

A PDF of a sheet full of them is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ltWADMnsx7eEFpdUIyazgxN3c/view?usp=sharing