Sunday, the 12th of May was a special day where we celebrated one of the most important people in our lives - mum! 😊

Oh so special…

The tamariki at Buckle My Shoe have been busy for the last 2 weeks, thinking about different things they could do for their mums who love and care for them so deeply. When asked what their mummies do for them we heard some great descriptions like,

“My mummy gives me books I don’t have.”

- (Rhys, 4)

“When I have hiccups my mummy gives me water, when it’s bedtime she reads books to me and it’s the last one but there’s always one more.”

- (James, 4)

“My mummy helps me when I am hurt and helps me get better.”

- (Iris, 4).

What gift could we give our mums?

“Mummies like cuddles”, one child suggested or “what about a card?”, said another. After a bit of brainstorming we decided it would be nice to give our mummies something that smells nice and began our project of making soap!

When the box of LUX flakes was brought to the table, our tamariki weren’t sure what was inside. After exploring the packaging and smelling it, they began making comments like, “it smells like washing powder”. We decided to open the box and have turns at pouring the LUX flakes into the bowl. “It’s like snow”, said Angela, as they watched the flakes escape the box.

“How are we going to make it into soap?” asked James and this sparked a discussion about different techniques and methods that could be used in soap making. We decided to add some coloured water to the flakes and slowly mix it through. We noticed that the flakes began to stick together and soon it was time to get our hands involved.

Hearts all around…

Because our tamariki love their mums so much, they chose a heart shape cutter for their soap. First, they pushed the wet LUX flakes into the heart shaped mould until it was completely fill to the top. Then came the tricky bit – carefully wriggling the soap out of the mould without breaking any of the edges.

It was very impressive to watch the children really concentrating on this part of the task, persevering when some edges started to crumble and using problem solving skills to adapt their approach to ensure the heart stayed together.

We let our soaps dry all afternoon and then once they were ready, we packaged them in special bags – all ready to gift to our mums!

Mums are awesome…

Coming home to mum’s delicious meals, baking and special planned events are always a treat – so we thought it would be nice to plan a special Mother’s Day morning tea where our mums could be the ones treated! On Friday the 10th of May, we invited all our mums, grandmothers and aunties to Buckle My Shoe and began our event with an interactive mat time.

It was beautiful to see our mums joining in to some of our favourite action songs like ‘Where is Thumbkin’.

Performance time!

With our voices warmed up, our tamariki had a special performance ready that they had been practicing for, for over a week. They began singing ‘I love my mummy’ along with some well practiced actions. Singing in front of a group is not an easy task but the children did such a great job and all our mums loved it!

We love you mummy!

We hope that all our mothers all over the world had an amazing Mother’s Day yesterday and were given lots of cuddles and love. 😊

Buckle My Shoe Early Learning Centre - Quality Childcare in Tauranga