Well, another Valentine's Day is in the books...the kids were crazy excited and had lots of fun!
During all the craziness, my principal decided that it would be a good time to do her unscheduled mini observation! Seriously?? Oh well, it is what it is and at least I can say it is over. She happened to walk in while we were doing some math activities with candy hearts. My group was doing some estimating, tallying, measuring and graphing while my aides group was sorting, graphing and counting.
Why is it that I always second guess myself with activities and wonder what I should have done better or differently?
Prior to the kids coming in for the day, I attached their valentine holders to their tables so that they would be ready when we started passing out our valentines. I think that the kids did a really good job of making their holders.
The kiddos used tag board tracers for most of the parts and then they free cut the rest! They had a choice of making a cat, dog or bear. The large heart with their names is made from scrapbooking paper and the rest from construction paper. My group this year sure does love doing crafts-maybe because we have time to do so few that when we do it is a break from routine and something different to do.
Our day was low key as far as activities. I have found that what they really want to do is just open up their cards and read them and acknowledge the friend that gave it to them. It is so fun to watch their reactions to opening each card and hearing them give an enthusiastic "thank you" to the person who sent it.
For the past few years, instead of having too many treats for snack, we have done a Secret Valentine in a Bag. A white bag goes home with each child to decorate and then inside they will put one salty treat, one sweet treat and a juice box along with a valentine card that says "to my secret Valentine". We put our chairs in a circle and I put a bag under each chair. We then play a version of musical chairs (without removing a chair) and when the music stops, they sit down. We will play a few times to make sure no one has their own bag that they brought in under their chair and then the kids will take their bag to their table and open up. We will go around and share who everyone's secret Valentine was and then eat our snack! Easy-peasy! No need to pass things out or take the time to go choose things to eat! The kids love this!
We also incorporated some science into our day with candy hearts. First, we predicted what we thought would happen to the candies and I wrote them on our chart. Then a few times throughout the day we would check the progress and talk about what we noticed happening. At the end of the day we jotted down what actually happened.
It was a fun day!
I am glad we have an extra day to our weekend-I need the time to recuperate! Haha! Hope your day was as fun and successfully exhausting!
Bring on the weekend...
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