The best part of Valentine’s day in Violet’s world for the last couple of years has been the construction of the absolutely positively perfect Valentine’s box.
This is her last year in elementary school and her classmates were planning elaborate boxes because (according to Violet) they knew she would be “bringing it”. So naturally this year’s box had to be BETTER THAN EVER!
Every year the Valentine’s box is both an exercise in creativity and an opportunity for some kind of lesson to be learned.
Take for example, the 3rd grade Valentine box…
The Phantom of the Opera box was used to reinforce Math skills AND Violet learned that she should always vote for herself in any contest.
The previous year’s lesson was applied and, to Violet’s delight, her 4th grade Drive-In Movie box won 1st prize!
New lesson learned? Don’t leave pictures in your camera phone because someone will have a bike wreck in a river and the phone and all the pictures will be toast.
This year the box would be used as a Science class project and had to incorporate 3 simple machines.
Bonus points for whoever names the most in the comments. I could only remember a couple and had to look them up. Hint: there are 6. And remember what they say about cheaters.
Violet concocted an elaborate scheme to build a chocolate factory that really worked! Steve, of course, was completely on board with that idea. Any project that involves mechanical stuff gets his full support and I was happy to let the two of them plot and plan the grand design.
Lessons learned this year? Well there were several. Simple machines, of course. But also, exactly how competitive my husband and daughter are as demonstrated by his willingness to spend mucho moola on Erector Sets (yes that is plural) to ensure that Violet will win.
And erector sets? The screws! The nuts and bolts! The extremely long directions! Really not as much fun as you might think. Violet is completely disenchanted with them after one project.
Maybe the grandkids will like erector sets. sigh.
Another picture here.
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