An Open Door: A Belated Valentine's Day Post

Sunday, February 19, 2012

A Belated Valentine's Day Post

Even though Valentine's Day was almost a week ago, I am posting my activities now. Better late than never, right? Or is it "better never late"? Sigh.

Valentine's Day was a delight in my classroom! Lots of fun, fun, fun activities!
(... and the children enjoyed it even more than I did!!!!)

The day before Valentine's Day we decorated bags to hold our valentines:

Then on Valentine's Day the children rotated to five different stations.

Station One: Estimation Station

I am THE worst estimator in the world so I love to have my students work on this skill. At this station, students began by estimating how many wooden hearts fit in a Valentine bag. (I found these cute little bags at the Dollar Store a few years back.) The children recorded their estimate and then counted how many hearts actually fit. Then they repeated with red trapezoids and red tiles. Along the way I asked questions like, "Do you think more hearts or trapezoids will fit in the bag? Why do you think that?" as I tried to push their mathematical thinking. (I try to do something similar at each holiday "party". For Halloween we estimated with small Halloween bags and for Christmas we estimated with small red Christmas stockings.)

Station Two: Valentine Crowns

(Lots of fine motor work - drawing and cutting those pesky hearts!) The students had a choice of pink or white sentence strips for the crown.

Stations Three: Valentine Fortune Cookies

Super silly, but oh, so fun! I gave the students red and pink construction paper circles to cut out. Then they wrote Valentine wishes for friends and family. Ahead of time we brainstormed comments that they could write. I made a large chart of their ideas for the children to refer to if needed. Once a "fortune" (Valentine wish) was written the child folded the circle in half with the fortune inside and a parent helper stapled it into a fortune cookie shape.

I just saw a post from Jill at Marvelous Multiagers that made me realize I could take this idea to a whole new level! Jill used really cute scrapbook paper for the circles and made a jarful of these "cookies" for her boyfriend. I am thinking that by Mother's Day my kiddos may be able to fill a jar with sweet notes for their moms.

Station Four: Valentine Sudoku

I personally LOVE Sudoku puzzles so, of course, I expect my students to love them, too! I found this one as a freebie at a local teacher store. I copied the board on white paper and the pieces that needed to be cut out on purple. This made is easy for my kiddos to see which pieces to cut.

Station Five: Valentine Bingo

Just plain old ordinary Bingo, but with a few heart stickers thrown in for good sportsmanship. (Right now my firsties are working on numbers to 100 so this was great practice for them!)

After our stations, we passed out our Valentines. Every year it makes me smile to see how excited my students are to receive so many cards!

Here are the valentines I gave to my students. (They look much cuter in real life!!!) Thank you Pinterest! We have learned quite a bit of sign language so my kiddos LOVED the hands!