February | 2012 | CanTeach

I’m so glad Valentine’s day is here, my class has been desperately waiting for a day to indulge themselves in candy, chocolates, and craftiness. Christmas and Valentine’s Day, the two holidays when glitter bombs the classroom. As soon as the Valentine themed calendar display went up, the kids have been counting down!

I read this headline in the newspaper today: “There’s No Gift Problem Chocolate Can’t Solve”. Yep, that about sums it all for me. Honestly, I’d take chocolate over jewellery any day! Last year, I made myself some chocolate covered strawberries for the first time. They were so much easier to make than I expected and oh so good! You just have to melt chocolate chips and dip the strawberries in it. Yes, that easy! “What is that? Oh yes I’ll have another, don’t mind if I do”.

Okay enough about chocolate, let’s go to the classroom. Like I said, glitter glitter all around. Here’s a decoration we made to hang in the room. It was very simple, we just cut out hearts and then finger painted with the brightest pinks, reds, and whites we could find. Finger painting is so good for those kids who can’t control themselves. They go nuts with the paint… which in the end makes their project look so beautiful!

I also printed out x’s and o’s on which they glittered any which way they wanted. Another great thing for the kids who can’t control themselves, but not good for you or your custodian as glitter gets into every corner of the room and every orifice on your body. Watch your kids when they glue the letters on, we got a few gluing “ox” instead of “xo”! Here’s an XO template you can print off. This was harder than I thought it would be to find on the internet, so I just made up one myself (which probably took less time than the time I spent Googling and Pinteresting!).

In our literacy centres I included the following activity. This was the first time my class did a words around the room job. I thought it would be chaos, but the groups worked well together and enjoyed the challenge of finding as many words as they could.

Enjoy Valentine’s Day and the love and friendship around you!

Happy Teaching,
Iram

crayon heart

Valentine’s Day is approaching and my firsties are getting flirtatious. I know, I know, Grade One, gasp… but it is so funny. One girl today received a beautiful portrait of her and a special paper crown made with hearts and written on it was “I love you.” (complete sentence upper case letter, period, perfect!). Anyway, the receiver was not too pleased at all. She was embarrassed and… can a six year old be offended?! She was offended.

Off I went to find out who the admirer was; the receiver would not let up. Clues included paper scraps, a glue with no lid on it, and crayons stashed in the corner between my desk and shelf. Soon enough some “friends” came to rat one of their own out. I was not convinced that it was the boy they were naming, though… this boy can barely write his own name legibly let alone write a full sentence! But, I did my due diligence, pulled him aside and asked him if he was the admirer. He fessed up right away. After praising him on writing so well, he admitted that he convinced another boy to write it out for him because, “Mrs, Khan, I can’t write.” (with the emphasis on the “I” meaning, “well duh, of course I had to get someone else to write it!”). He also asked one of our grade 7 lunch monitors to draw a picture of his love (it was also suspiciously a little too stylized). He then said with a sigh, “I love ____, she’s sooo beautiful.” Here’s a pic of the remnants of his present. Oh boy, he’s got it bad!

I returned it to the girl and she proceeded to rip it up. Thankfully her admirer was off smashing puzzle pieces. Of course then after school I dug through the recycling bin because I just had to share the story with you!

Now this event got me going on revisiting my cut and paste centre (I don’t know why I call it that, it’s a place where kids can do arts and crafts, draw, write stories, etc…), I’m going to put in some materials to make Valentine cards and write Valentine stories with including some words on card stock that they can use to help them write (no anonymity allowed!). Here’s a printable of some fancy Valentine words for you.

As many of you do, I use this time of year to talk about friendship and the qualities of a good friend. One of my favourite activities is this friend interview. I pair up students who usually do not play or sit together and get them to interview each other. It’s a great way to practice listening and patience (ahhh, great qualities in a friend!).

And last but not least, here are some Valentine and friendship songs and poems that are on CanTeach:

Happy Teaching,
Iram

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