I was soapin' you'd be my Valentine!

Right after we pack away the Christmas decorations, I start brainstorming about class valentines.  The Nugget's gifts are especially challenging since he's at the wonderfully hippie Montessori school - no sweets, nothing that feels too disposable, and of course now he's a big third year, so nothing too "babyish".  Tall order, but I do love a challenge!

The Nugget and I both love science, and awhile ago, we tried out the Ivory soap experiment.    I thought I could cut the bars and type out simple instructions to make a take-home experiment!  I suggested it along with a few other ideas, and the Nugget immediately wanted to share his love of scientific discovery.

The Nugget's first question was, "But what will you write?"  In our house, valentines = cheesy sayings.  I had no clue, so I actually Googled "cheesy valentines messages" and found this glorious list.  The winner was, "I was soapin' you'd be my Valentine!" and had the Nugget rolling on the floor in laughter.  He chose the font, printed and cut the paper strips.  (He's been given official permission to use the paper cutter and boy does he love it.)  I used a glue stick to mount the strip onto red construction paper.  You could use cardstock or cute patterned scrapbook paper if your child would like to fancy it up a bit.

We went to the store to buy Ivory soap (only $4/10 bars, which become 20 valentines) and inexpensive cello bags.  He happily peeled and chopped the soap bars with a pastry cutter, and I packaged them.  Normally, getting him to put the soap wrappers in the trash would have been a huge ordeal, so I just pulled the trash can out of the cabinet and sat it on the floor below his workstation, and he dropped them right in as we went along!

The baker's twine is from the Target Dollar Spot during last year's Valentine's clearance.  I have an old dresser in the basement with drawers dedicated to holding goodies for the smaller holidays, so it was easy to find in the Valentine's drawer.  I stacked the gift tag with the instruction tag, hole punched them, and attached them to the bag with the twine.

I'm super excited and only mildly concerned that I will get emails from annoyed parents ;) It is just soap, after all!  Bonus use for the expanded soap foam - Fairy Mud!  Giving the Nugget permission to unroll a whole lot of tp made his day!