Mom Rhonda Leach is all smiles as her daughter, Racquel, works on a beaded necklace during Creslane kindergarten’s Mother’s Tea. Gini Davis/The Creswell Chronicle
Creslane kindergarten’s annual Mother’s Tea illustrated just how special mom is, on Mother’s Day and every day. The event was held May 10 in all four kindergarten classrooms.
Moms were treated to tea sipped from delicate teacups, cookies, songs or stories, and a variety of heartwarming, handmade keepsakes as they joined children at tables adorned with fresh flowers.
The décor, gifts and projects varied from room to room, where all four classrooms went all out.
Kindergartners in Cheryl Clancey, Debbie Larson, Shawna Bradley and Nastalia Raines’ classrooms presented their mothers (or grandmother, or another special woman in their lives) with child-shaped All About Me books; ”fact” sheets about ”My Mommy” (including guessing her age, with some hilarious results); Mother’s Day cards decorated with paper flowers; flowerpots holding child-handprint flowers; decorated placemats; and more.
In some classrooms, the children sang for their moms; in others, moms and kids listened as stories were read aloud, including Larson’s favorite, ”I’ll Love You Forever.”
In all four rooms, moms and children also worked on art projects. These included stringing colorful bead necklaces, making keychains for mom featuring their child’s photo, symmetrically coloring a paper butterfly, using colored markers to decorate a canvas tote bag, and more.
Raines, a kindergarten teacher new to Creslane this year, offered a unique project: populating a hand-drawn tree with ”birds” made from the child’s fingerprints: After dipping a fingertip in paint, the child presses it to the paper to create ”birds” sitting on the tree’s branches. Once beaks, eyes, wings and feet are drawn on them, the fingerprint birds are complete.
”Some other classes are making necklaces, but you guys get to get dirty,” a smiling Raines told her students and their moms. ”We thought this would be a fun project for you to do together.”
No matter how it was celebrated, each room’s tea featured plenty of tender, happy smiles, warm hugs and kisses shared by the moms and their kids before leaving school to enjoy their Mother’s Day weekend.
The Mother’s Tea is one of several annual events at Creslane that invite family members to join their kindergartners for special project days, with the goal of helping ease the youngsters’ transition from home, preschool or daycare into a full school day.
In December, dads are invited to help their sons and daughters make gingerbread houses, and in June the entire family is welcome to attend the Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony and Teddy Bear Picnic.
”The kids are always so happy to introduce mom and dad to the class and show them what they’ve been learning all year,” Clancey said. ”They get all excited for these special days.”
