Simple Mother's Day Gift, Printable and Children's Books

My husband helped my kids decorate hot pads for myself and their grandmas for Mother’s Day last year.  If you’re looking for a quick and easy Mother’s Day gift idea, this craft is perfect. I love functional keepsakes. I use these hot pads almost every day and love to see them hanging in my kitchen.

They traced their hands on one side. Make sure to add their age or the date.  Then he let the kids draw whatever they wanted on the other side. Notice my toddler’s perfect scribbles.

My son also decorated an oven mitt to match the set. 

They got all of these at the dollar store. The hot pads were 2 for $1.00. The mitt was $1.00.  These are such a simple and inexpensive gift I decided to help all the kids at church make these for their moms for Mother’s Day this year.  I searched for a poem to make a tag to go along with the gift.  I found an anonymous poem and made a free printable tag for you. You can save this, print it and use it for non-commercial use (personal use only).

We are helping 80 kids make these for their moms. Some moms will get more than one if they have multiple children. We bought plain red, country blue, sage green and beige. See the Dollar Tree store products if you plan to order in bulk. I have no affiliation with them, though it is the best place I’ve found to get them.

My Favorite Mother’s Day Children’s Books
(*Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate and you may purchase these books through clicking the links or the picture of the book. I make a small percentage from the sales. I encourage you to try the books at your library first.)
Mother, Mother, I Want Another, by Maria Polushkin Robbins, is one of our favorites throughout the year. My husband introduced me to it when we had kids because he remembered his mom reading it to him.  It is a darling story about a mouse who likes to stall by asking for another drink, another toy and so on. Then at the end he asks for another hug.

Another favorite that I’ve have had for the past two years is My Mommy is a Blogger, by Sommer Poquette. I met Sommer at Evo’ (a conference for women in social media) a few years ago and was thrilled she had written a book that helps explain what I do for my kids.  My kids love the part that calls mommy a ‘booger.’ The story is silly yet still gets the point across. 

Here are a few other classic books about mothers that we love: (click the pics for more details)
 

Are you making any crafts or reading special books for Mother’s Day? I’d love to hear about your favorites in the comments below.

I am also a Google Affiliate: If you click or buy the links below, I recieve a small percentage.

Hamburger Cupcakes and Books

We made these fun hamburger cupcakes for my daughter's Sock Hop Birthday Party.

Items Needed:

Yellow cake mix

Brownie cake mix

White frosting in a can (vanilla or cream cheese)

Yellow food coloring

Red frosting (buy this at the store, too hard to make this color at home)

Shredded Coconut

Green Food coloring

Sesame Seeds (found near the spice jars at the store)

How to make Hamburger Cupcakes: 

1. Use yellow cake mix to bake cupcakes in liners as directed by box mix. Once cool, remove from wrapper then cut just under the muffin top to create 2 separate pieces of the hamburger buns. (If cupcakes are tall you may wish to remove 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the middle.)
2. Make brownies from a box mix, once cool cut into 2 inch squares and round edges to look like hamburger patty. Place on the bottom portion of the cupcake.
3. Use the can of white frosting. Add 4-6 drops of yellow food coloring and mix with spoon to change color. Spoon 5 Tbsp into a zip plastic bag and cut a small tip off one bottom corner.  Squeeze the frosting slowly and pipe it in waves around the edges of the brownie.
4. Pipe the Red frosting in waves around the edges of the brownie.
5. Place 3/4 cup of shredded coconut into a zip plastic bag and 3 drops of food coloring inside.  Zip bag then shake until coconut turns green. Sprinkle around edges of brownie.
6. Place the top of the cupcake/bun. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top as desired.

Hamburger Stories:

The Best story to read when you make these treats is The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Burger.

See the whole story/poem and printable on Marcia's Lesson Plans. Open the file for a word document.

Check out this cute interactive flannel board set on etsy.
You can also see someone do a video of the story on YouTube.

City of Hamburgers by Mike Reiss (a writer/producer of 'The Simpsons')

Description: "Jeffery is tired of the same old fairy tales and wants to hear about Grandma's life growing up in the old country as a Hamburger. Imagination, as well as ketchup and mustard, flow through this delightfully quirky book."
This book uses humor to share a story about multicultural differences. Fun for children and adults to read together and discuss.
Here are more books about Hamburgers:

 

More ideas at the Sock Hop Party.

I shared this idea at these great blogs, visit them for more creative ideas:

Chinese New Year Books and Craft, Simple Chinese Drum Tutorial

February 3 marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year celebration. The festivities last 15 days so you can pick a day in the next two weeks to try this craft and read some books with your little one.

I am the room mother for my daughter's first grade class this year and her teacher wanted to celebrate the Chinese New Year with a class party.  I wanted to bring my toy Chinese drum that I got in China Town in San Francisco but the strings broke off when the kids played with it this past year, so I came up with a way to craft some the kids can take home.

2011 is the year of the rabbit.

I found this beautiful image of a rabbit with a red Chinese design at the Indian Chinese Association.

Then I found some Chinese calligraphy cards at Activity Village. Let children look at the writing and try to copy it onto the back side of their drum. Depending on their age, help them a little and label it with the English word so others will know what it means. This is a great activity to show how beautiful and complicated Chinese writing is.

YOU'LL NEED:

• Pony beads (any color, mine are clear)
• Thin ribbon (to fit through the pony beads), about 7 inches long
• Popsicle sticks (or you could try hot gluing it to a pencil)
• Card stock (one page printed, one page plain)
• Stapler

HOW TO MAKE THE CHINESE DRUM:

• Print the Circled Rabbit design on card stock (I copied and pasted it into Microsoft Word making it about 2.5 inches in diameter).
• Print the calligraphy cards on normal paper so the kids can look at them as an example- or on card stock if you want to use these as the back of your drum.
• Cut the Circled Rabbits and one blank circle the same size out of card stock.
• Tie a pony bead in a double knot on the end of each ribbon.
• Wrap the middle of the ribbon around the popsicle stick one time.
• Put the ribbon and stick sandwiched between the front and back of drum.
• Staple the outside of the blank side of the drum right on top of the stick and ribbon to help hold it.

Now your kids can twist it back and forth to make sound.
Have them try drawing the Chinese calligraphy on the blank side of drum before or after you assemble it.

Update Feb. 10: My friend Debbie made some drums using the calligraphy cards.  Visit her blog, Cranberry Fries, to see how cute they are.

One of my favorite books, that I remember my elementary school librarian reading to us, was Tikki Tikki Tembo, by Arlene Mosel, illustrated by Blair Lent.  Is is about two little Chinese boys who fall down a well but one has a short name and one has a long name. It is so fun to read out loud to your kids. It has a great rhythm and is very repetitive so the kids enjoy chanting along.

I also checked two books out from our library to read to the class. My First Chinese New Year by Karen Katz (see Amazon link below) is nice and quick with bright colors and a nice overview of Chinese New Year festivities the kids will enjoy hearing about.

Happy New Year! (Kun-Hsi Fa-Ts'Ai) by Demi, (Amazon link below)  has great illustrations and more details about the history of the holiday. This one would be good to sit down and have a discussion with your kids as you read.

And, last, but not least, is another classic Chinese story.  The Empty Pot, by Demi. This wonderful folk tale is about a little Chinese boy who was honest about trying to make his seed grow, but nothing happened because he was given a trick seed by the Emperor. He presented the empty pot to the Emperor and was rewarded for his honesty.

A great collection of books can be found at the blog American Born Chinese Children's Book Alley.
A few more blogs with great Chinese New Year books are: School Library Journal, Colorin Colorado, Pragmatic Mom.

Happy Chinese New Year!


This project is linked to: