Happy Father's Day!

There are so many activities I am involved in at our local church, and I love them all, but honestly, one of my favourites is leading my Jr. Church class. Well .... there are days when those kids make me crazy and I feel like pulling my hair out, but honestly, I do love working with them in spite of those moments of chaos. For the last couple of years, I have been leading the Grades 4 and 5 class. Probably my favourite thing to do with the kids is a craft. It is sometimes challenging working with a mixed class at that age because the girls are usually much more advanced in their small motor skills than the boys are. But somehow, we muddle our way through and at the end of each class, the kids have something to take home and show off to their parents.

Today for Father's Day, we are making cinnamon scented air-fresheners for their dad's car or truck. I got the idea from an internet site and modified it to work with my class.

You start by taking a sheet of sandpaper and using a cookie cutter, stencil a gingerbread man shape on the back of the paper.

Then you cut out the gingerbread man, turn it over to the "sandy" side, and glue grated cinnamon on it.  Well, the internet site recommended freshly grating cinnamon with a cheese grater, but knowing the kids I have in my class, I suspected there would be way too many grated knuckles.  Instead I found this awesome product at our local dollar store:

It's cinnamon sugar with a built in grinder in the bottle, like a pepper grinder.  Pretty much "kid-proof" - I'm hoping there is no way they maim themselves with that!  I used a pipe cleaner at the top so it will be easy for the dads to hang it from their rearview mirrors.

Here's a look at the end product and I must say it smells delicious!  Hope the scent lasts for awhile. (You'll probably notice it's sitting on top of our Father's Day cards that we're also working on. Under the "tie" which is made from scrapbooking paper, it says "Thanks Dad! U "tie" R family 2-gether.")

I'm off to church now, and hopefully these will be as easy to replicate with the kids as I'm thinking it will be! There are usually at least one or two surprises though so who knows!  In the mean time, I hope you are all having a good Father's Day, spending some special moments with the important men in your life.