Virtual Valentines

I don't want to forget this year, so I've been trying to remember those special moments that I felt the classroom magic... through a computer.  

Virtual Valentines came into our classroom this year.  The week of Valentines I usually give the students Friendship Homework.  It's the last week of the trimester, when we are taking a break with new information to just review... They usually write compliments for each student, then take the papers, and glue them on their valentine bags.  This year with everything going on, I still wanted them to have the joy of giving.  But we did it virtually.  It was AWESOME!

Over on the main page of our TEAM - where kids are NEVER allowed to write, I put 27 announcements - one with each of the names. It looked like this, but the GIF was something a little more personalized for each kid.

Students took the entire week and replied to each post with compliments, stickers, emojis, and gifs. They soaked it up.  They filled our main page with kindness. Then on that Friday before Valentines, they went and took screenshots of the messages from their classmates if they wanted to save.  

I also stuck the top image into each of their private channels to give a private valentine.  They responded with some very kind words.  These kids can make me cry.  Like when I overheard/saw an entire conversation over in a team channel about encouraging their classmates to give compliments to me... and they started saying the sweetest things.  I don't think they realized that I could read every single word. It was supposed to be a secret from me until the big reveal. 

I have hope for the next generation.  There are good ones. It made it a very special day after all. I’m now thinking of doing something similar for St. Patrick’s Day... like Pass around those Lucky Charms. :) Lol! We’ll see...   

Hope you had a great day! 

Heart Animals

Isn't it amazing what you can do with the heart shape?  On Fridays I like to do some kind of art project after all our tests, so last week I had my sub have the kids create Heart Animals.  It started out with a simple google search.  

Yep, I even took a screen shot of what I saw.  Tons of animals... then I made some samples up, and brought them to school so the kids could get some ideas.  

Look what I was greeted with when I arrived at school!  We have our own zoo on the pocket chart!  

The animals all started out the size of a quarter sheet of construction paper.  From there my 4th graders could make the hearts, and turn them into whatever creation they could imagine.  I pulled out the googly eyes for them to create with as well.  So much fun!

I know we are all about the standards, and I know that many places teachers aren't allowed to have fun anymore... but I really believe that kids are kids, and a Friday afternoon is a good time to work on following directions and creating art.  ;)  Today I needed my pocket chart back, so the kids had the option to take them home, or donate them to the local nursing home for the annual Valentine's Day party.  The kids all wanted to make someone smile.  :)  

Hope you got some animal ideas!  

Heart Trees and Definitions of Love

Hi Everyone!  Today I was finally back in the classroom after 6 long days of dealing with this concussion.  What a day!  This afternoon my art mom came in and taught the kids how to create Heart Trees.  They turned out gorgeous!  

It was super simple to set up.  The kids each got a piece of white construction paper, a brown marker, a Q-tip, and a little (tiny) bowl with a dab of white and red paint - not mixed.  They drew the trunk of the tree to begin with and then some of them created a heart outline for the top of the tree.  Inside the tree they used the 2 ends of the Q-tip - one side they mixed the red and white to make pink, the other they used red.  They started out with adding some hearts, and then filled in the rest of the tree with dots as the leaves.  

As my class finished it was an easy clean up, and they grabbed a piece of hot pink paper to brainstorm their definition of LOVE.  Love is... Love means.  We discussed it a little, and then they wrote their own definition.  I love how it came out.

I put up the artwork on the bulletin board after school (when the pictures were finally dry), so I'm excited to see the kids' reaction tomorrow morning.

I hope you had a wonderful day!  

Heart Shaped Valentine Holder

Last year my dear neighbor showed me how to make these heart shaped bags.  They are simple, and the kids are amazed how they come together.    

You take a brown paper bag and fold it in half vertically.  Then round the top (like a banana).

Then cut out half a heart a little farther down - this makes the handle.  An adult cut mine out (since my students are having a timeout from using scissors), but if students are cutting them out it's a good thing to add a "x" to the part that will fall away.   

Then open it up and decorate it before filling.  

Easy as pie!  Hope you had a good day!

Recipe for a Great Friendship and My Exhausting Day

I am exhausted! Why is it that special holidays always take so much more energy than the normal routine?

Here is what my class tackled today.

Writing: Ladybugs "Recipe for a Great Friendship"

We brainstormed together on the board, 

and then I set them free to create their own recipes.

My criteria: At least 4 different ingredients, using fractions or mixed numbers with specific measurements. They then had to write a sentence with the directions of how to make it.

They were cute!  Though they were also challenging since my class just learned about mixed numbers this past week, and I don't believe some have them have been in the kitchen before... since they seemed dazed when I was describing the different measuring equipment.

We also did our Conversation Heart Fractions, regular lesson for Reading, and helped our First grade Buddies graph conversation hearts. 

Then it was party time this afternoon. 

The kids voted to watch part of Monsters Inc. (goes with the monster valentine boxes from yesterday) and it's rated G. We passed out valentines and had treats they brought in from home. I think that I'm one step closer to diabetes... :(

Hope you had a great day!

Heart (Valentine) Treat Bags and Conversation Heart Fractions

My school neighbor is super clever and she shared her awesomeness with me this afternoon. Look how cute these turned out. 

I'm totally doing this next year!!

Pretty simple to make, just fold the grocery bag and round the top corner. Then trace and cut a half circle. When they open up the bag the kids ohh and ahh because they are impressed with the heart handle. Then they decorate it with their name. I of course chose my favorite name from her batch of kids to share with you. :) Yes, I'm slightly biased.

Here's another idea that might help you tomorrow.  I'm sorry that I forgot to share this earlier on this month.  

Basically I give my students a small package of conversation hearts (since we've been learning about fractions for the past 2 weeks), and they have to estimate, identify, simplify, add, and subtract fractions. It's a lot to do, but they can totally handle it!  It's a freebie over at TPT.  

Hope you had a great day!  I'm gearing up for tomorrow's craziness...

Valentine Pins

I know there are a ton of different activities to do this next week, but I wanted to share the ones that I'm excited about regarding Valentines.  
All of these courtesy of Pinterest.  :) Click the pictures to take you to the pins.

30+ crafts

Fun with Valentines - keeping it educational :)

Minute to Win it games for a party

This is a freebie - Math and Literacy Activities

My 4th graders enjoyed making this for their mom's last year - even though it's supposedly a prek activity.


This hat was easy to make - last year I changed it up to a vocabulary game headband thing.

I have my students use Kleenex boxes (they bring them in from home) to create Monster Valentine holders.  I just used card stock for the eyes instead of egg crates.  
Have a great day!  We are off on vacation today.   I love 3 day weekends... :)
P.S. - I've been changing around things in my TPT store since so many of my task cards were Valentine themed... now I also have Robot Multi Digit Multiplication and Long Division Task Cards, as well as Super Hero Addition with Regrouping and Subtraction with Regrouping Task Cards.  My goal today (besides cleaning the house) is to update my TN store too.  I hope this helps someone out there.  

Mode and Median

Today I felt the urge to jump off a cliff.  It really was one of those moments that I couldn't wrap my head around WHY these children didn't GET IT?!?  It was the first day of learning Mode and Median and those first moments with the glassy look in their eyes terrified me.

At least until a moment later when I had them all up out of their seats with their whiteboards having them act out median.  We stood in number order with their number on their whiteboard, the line stretching across the classroom.  I had them sit down going in order - least (#1) then greatest (#32), least (#2) then greatest (#31) until we got to student #17 who happened to be our median for the day (a student went home early so we had an odd number).  The kids celebrated the student and then we dove into our textbooks to find other median "heroes".  

After it was all said and done - we will need to review this concept again - definitely tomorrow, maybe again next week, definitely again before testing.  

So I whipped this up tonight.  A cute little scoot game and then another thing to stick into the math center rotations.  Isn't it adorable?  

32 task cards with an answer key.  5 or 6 numbers per card to learn how to find median and mode in a group of numbers.  Sometimes there isn't a mode... I'm so tricky.  :)  

It's over at TPT in case your class needs it!

Reviewing Multi Digit Multiplication

Look what I made today!  
In between cleaning the house, decorating a gingerbread mini village with my boys, participating in my toddler's speech session, and wrapping gifts - I also made up 2 different Valentines multiplication sets of task cards.  
The first one reviews 3 digit by 2 digit multiplication.

Click to head to TPT

The second set reviews 2 and 3 digit by 1 digit multiplication (since my own 3rd grader was getting a little sad that the other ones weren't for him).

Click to head to TPT

We are going to do a little scoot action at school before I stick them out into the math center rotation.  Planning on sticking these out the end of January to last until Valentine's Day.  Can you tell that I love the game of Scoot?  The kids always get into it, and it's a great way to review 32 problems without getting bored.  I usually time them for a minute - so it encourages them to speed up so we can rotate.  There is an answer key too for both, so it can make a self checking math center.   
The past couple of days I seem to be posting things and giving them away on my Facebook page to the first couple of people that comment on the posts.  Just an FYI if you haven't found me there yet.  
 Thanks everyone for all the support in Blogland, on FB, and this new venture at TPT.