I’m Vicki Church and I teach 3’s preschool at Denver Christian School. With the Easter holiday upon us last week, my 3’s preschool colleague Sonja Elmore proposed making — and also hand delivering — stuffed bunnies for our sweet 3-year-old friends.
Not only do we love our preschoolers, but we deeply love their families. Keeping in contact and maintaining relationships with our families is important to us, and we wanted to do something that would go beyond the virtual contact we have had (though we are grateful that the use of technology has helped us to stay connected!)
We loved the idea of bringing a delightful surprise to our sweet students whom we miss seeing so much, so we quickly got to work!
Finding fabric for this project proved challenging since most stores that carry fabric were closed. Thankfully, Walmart had just what we needed. Sonja cut out the bunnies and I sewed and stuffed them. We also added a familiar scent to remind them of our time together: a drop of lemon/eucalyptus oil that we use in our classroom to get their olfactory sense working.
We carefully packaged each bunny and most importantly, prayed over the children and their families who would be receiving them. Our prayer was that these bunnies would comfort our kids and that each time they hugged their bunny they would remember how much God loves them and is with them, AND how much we love them.
With all of the bunnies packaged and ready, we set off to deliver them. Of course, we practiced social distancing and wore masks as we delivered each bunny. Sonja drove and I rode in the 3rd row of her vehicle, which was quite a funny sight! I found out that third row seating is NOT designed for tall people!
At each student’s home, we left a package on the doorstep, rang the doorbell, and waited by the sidewalk so that we could say hello to our families when they answered the door.
At one drop-off the whole family (including the dog!) got in their window and we chatted through the screen before coming to the door for a picture. The excitement from the whole family as someone came to visit was so fun to see. We were just as excited to see them as they were to see us!
We did try to contact families ahead of time and let them know we would be stopping by, but a few were completely surprised by our visit! At one stop, it was we who were surprised: waiting on the porch for us when we got there were yummy chocolates from Hawaii!The look on our littles’ faces were full of excitement and complete joy that we were at their homes. Several wanted to show us things from their homes, projects they had completed, coloring sheets, crafts or other stuffed animals that they love. Their siblings also enjoyed having visitors and and often shared in the fun of the surprise visit too!
It took us several hours to deliver all of them but it was so worth it! We enjoyed our time together, but the greatest joy was seeing the smiling faces of our precious little ones. And their parents’ texts back to us with pictures and stories of how much the bunnies were loved were an encouraging gift to us!
See Instagram for some more pictures. We love the Denver Christian School community and we loved connecting with our preschoolers and their families like this. We can’t wait to be back together in person again!