Sunday, June 19, 2011

Best Father's Day Ever!

A couple weeks ago I had a really excellent idea. What if I had my primary class (ages 8-9) decorate ties for their fathers? The kids would have a ton of fun decorating ties, the dads would receive a cool gift that they would treasure forever, and I would have the joy and amusement of watching several of the men in our congregation wear ties that my class designed. Win-win-win!

I checked to see if Father's Day was one of my weeks to teach (because I alternate with another teacher) and it was! So I ordered a bunch of white ties online, I bought some fabric markers, and got some cheap gift bags. Today all of my kids were there except one. We had a shorter than average lesson (about Jesus being The Good Shepherd, and what shepherds are, and why Jesus is like our shepherd, and why we should follow his voice because he will lead us) and then I announced our activity. The kids were so excited! I told them they don't get another tie if they mess up, so they each had to draw (on paper) a practice version of what they were going to do. I approved each design, and handed out ties, and let them start coloring.


We ended up with a wide variety of designs. (If the picture is too small, click on it so that you can see it bigger.)


From left to right:
1) Her dad's name spelled out as an acrostic: Excelent. Dad. Wonderful. Awesome. Ridiculous. Dude. There was space left over, so she repeated the whole thing. There was still space left over so she wrote YOUR THE BEST DAD EVER! (Looks great!)
2) Stars all over the top of it, and then she wrote The Best Dad in the world! Then she drew a random shape and colored it at the bottom. (He's going to love it!)
3) He wrote The Best Dad In The world and then drew a big BYU logo and a big Green Bay logo. The bottom of the tie has a whole bunch of BYU and Green Bay logos. (Wow, that looks really good!)
4) A bold zigzag-type pattern in blue, red, and purple. It looks pretty cool because the colors blend together just a little bit. (Nice!)
5) She drew a whole bunch of light green stripes, really close together. Her dad likes stripes, she said. In the middle the tie says Your the Best dad in the world. She kind of ran out of space a little for the end of "world" so it is on the next line. On hers the stripes cover the skinny part of the tie that tucks in back, too. (Good job!)
6) Another striped tie, with #1 Dad in the middle. Her dad likes green. She was kind of worried because the stripes were not all perfectly parallel. I told her it looks really good. It came out great. (Wow!)
7) She made a diamond pattern and then colored in all of the diamonds with the colors all mixed up. (She finished after I took the picture, while I was helping the other kids put theirs in gift bags.) On each of the diamonds she wrote a letter "D". Her dad's initials are C.R. "D" is for "Dad." (I bet your dad is going to really like that. It's so colorful!)

"You guys, your ties all look REALLY GOOD, so you should tell your dads to wear them." (One girl said, "Yeah, they can wear them next week!" "That's a great idea!")

So anyway, it was kind of silly, but I bet their dads will be really surprised. They'll have the perfect tie to wear for every future Father's Day, and hopefully some times in between.

8 comments:

Shelli said...

That is SUCH a great idea! I love it. My only criticism is that you let them put "your the best..." instead of "you're the best..."

But I guess you can't always catch those things! :)

ps: the word verification to post this comment is "cousinit" which I found to be hilarious.

Ashley R. said...

I wouldn't say "your" vs "you're" is a criticism QUITE yet. I think that because of their ages it's actually a pretty natural mistake and so I think that's part of the sweetness of it all. I know that we always want to correct the kiddos and make them do things perfectly but really isn't the more loved gift the one that's not quite perfect? Just my humble opinion, though.

MamaErin said...

How cute!! What a great lesson Em. When I saw the title of your blog I thought you were going to have the same kind of Father's Day surprise that Joe and his wife gave my parents... an announcement of a new baby!!! Their first child is due late February. I think my parents liked that gift much much better than the dog we all got them as a joint Father's Day/ Mom's birthday gift (her bday was today). I don't blame them... even though the dog is a sweetheart she was quite an unexpected visitor for them.

Emily said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Emily said...

Shelli and Ashley - Re: "your" vs "you're" - Yeahhhh, I thought about correcting them. I decided it would be more authentic to leave it alone. Also, I tried to explain that ties would usually say "Best Dad in the World" or "#1 Dad!" but they don't usually say "You're the" because other people will read it too. That made no sense to them at all. Whatever. It's more special this way. :)

Erin - Nope, this Father's Day was just the best because of the ties. I keep giggling when I think about their dads wearing them. Congratulations to Joe and his wife, though! That's so exciting! What kind of dog did you guys get your parents?

LJ said...

I would've paid good money to be in your Primary class. Decorating ties for Father's Day? Does it *get* any cooler than that?

MamaErin said...

Joe and Lindsey picked out the sweetest dog from the shelter by their house. She's a shepherd mixed with what we think is bull dog or boxer. She's such a sweetheart! Joe and Linds had her for a week and then dropped her off with us on Thursday . She is so well mannered, came already trained (not one single accident ever!!) and even though she isn't the cutest of dogs she has won our heart. I'm hoping my parents will grow to love her as much as Joe and I already do

krebscout said...

this rocks