Valentine's Writing Ideas

Every year - I change up what kind of Valentine's Day writing I do. I think it really just depends on the class I have, maybe??

Anyway - I wanted to put all of my past ideas in one post for you - so here you go! 

One of the things I do is to have them write about things they love about themselves! I really love doing this. You'd be amazed at how hard this is for them. 

I use the heart scrapbook punch to cut out various size hearts on various paper for a cute pop of color. 

I do make it a writing lesson too, of course. 

Another idea I've done is to have them create a Google Slide with a speech bubble. I take their picture, remove the background (thank you, PicsArt for doing all the work for me!) and then insert it into a google slide. I print them up and they can put it on the inside of a card for whoever they want to give it to. Parents, grandparents, whoever they live with. 

One of my favorite cards we make is this one - I let them watercolor paint whatever they want.  I take their picture and remove the background, print them up and glue them to the front of the card. I love using that heart hole puncher to make quick hearts! 

If they don't feel like blowing kisses, no biggie - they can pose however they want. I have a few other props they can use too. 

They can write a simple letter to glue on the inside of the card - 

I have some freebie letter templates - click the picture to download!

Here are a few other Valentine activities we love to do! 

Candy heart math is one of our favorites

And our Class Books - such a fun writing and they always want to read them throughout the year. 

And ELA and Math Centers - for Grade 1 and Grade 2

Hershey Kiss Similes 

One of the best centers - Label it and write about it!

And these Monthly Family projects are always fun to hang up in the room! 

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Valentine's Week Wrap Up.

Valentine's is DONE and OVER!

Woohoo! Honestly, I can't wait to pack it all up and move on.

I know... I'm so "heartless." haha!

But, here's a recap of what we did the last few days/week to get ready for the "big day."

To start with, we made our heart window clings... which I'm in LOVE with.

Then we started on our Valentine's cards. I can't even say enough, of how cute they are!

And while I was out sick, my kids did a day of Love, Splat! They LOVE Splat. So it was a perfect book to leave for sub plans for the day. 

We also made our class book for the week - Who Will Be My Valentine? which goes perfectly with Who Will Be My Valentine This Year?  My Kids LOVE making Class Books! Check more out HERE. 

Something else we did today was one of my favorite poems for visualizing and using details in a text... Monster Love! This poem comes from DeeDee's February Poetry Pack.  We practiced it a few times, then talked about what words describe the monster to help you visualize...

Just look at all these awesome looking Love Monsters.... they're all so different and so creative. 

Sometimes we do a walkabout after we do illustrations to match our poems...they BEGGED to do a walkabout on this one so they could see everyone's monsters. 

And finally... we did our Candy Heart Math!! They kids ALWAYS love this.

When they finished their booklet, They had to see how many hearts they could stack... They got pretty high, but with all the desk bumping going on, not sure who got the tallest stack. ha!

FINALLY, it was time to hand out the Valentine's! woohoo!!

Look at this amazing creation one of the parents made!! So amazing!!

and look at these amazing HOMEMADE Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! Not ashamed to admit... they didn't make it home to share with my husband. Woops!

And finally... One of my students gave me this little gem. It's so I'll remember him forever....and forever I will remember him.... but aside from that, I think this is my new classroom mascot. haha! It's perfect, right??

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Candy Heart Math

It's about that time again!!

Like I said in my Valentine Card post, I'm NOT a Valentine person. I'm just not. 

But one of the things I do every year (for the last 10 years or so) is Candy Heart Math.

I get these little boxes of Candy Hearts each year... and every year, the colors inside the boxes are different. haha Oh well, my class always knows that sometimes we just need to be flexible. 

Most of the time, the boxes have blue in them. This year, the boxes I got didn't have blue. Sometimes they have white instead of blue. Oh well, we make it work. 

And every year, when my kids see me buy the boxes of candy hearts, they beg to have some... and every year, I make them do the math for them. haha. 

Since C has decided that she no longer wants to take naps, there's no real good time for the girls to do it, without C trying to steal their candy... even though she already had her own box. haha

So... first we sort...and count them - write the number up top!

Then they write them in the hearts, so we have a starting recording sheet.  There's a sheet for fractions, if your kids are ready for that too.

Then graph and answer some questions....

Ten frame fun...and then answering 10 more and 10 less questions.

Adding... there's also a sheet for multiplying, if your kids are ready for that! I always had a few 2nd and 3rd graders who were ready for it.

Then we do some comparisons....

One of the last activities we do is Estimating! How many hearts do you think will fill up the heart? 

At school, I like to turn it into a book and put a cover on it. 

Here is a preview of everything that is included. Click the picture to check it out in my TPT store. And you check out my post from last year HERE. 

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Valentine Cards

I want to share with you one of my new favoritest things to do for Valentine's Day.

Let's start off... Valentine's Day is my LEAST favorite day of the year... as a teacher, mom, and wife. haha

(isn't my husband lucky??)

I never really do anything for Valentine's Day. I might take A day to do something... I really only usually do Candy Heart Math and Love, Splat.... because I love Splat the Cat. lol. You can read about those activities HERE. 

But THEN, I saw my friend, Stacey's post on Instagram. She blogs over at Funky Fresh Firsties. Her Valentine Cards were SOOOO cute... so I knew I had to do them. 

The very next day, we started on it.

They painted just the bottom half of a piece of white cardstock paper. I didn't really give them any direction, except to not paint any specific designs, because they were going to get covered up in the end. But I gave them pretty much free reign. 

Then I took their picture and went home and printed them up in color on regular paper.

The original pose from Stacy was blowing a kiss... it was SO cute.

I did have a boy that didn't want to do that, so I let him choose between the blowing the kiss, or making a heart with his hands. 

I used a heart hole puncher, different sizes (5/8", 1", and 2") to punch hearts out of different color paper and scrapbook paper. I got mine from Michaels, but I'm sure you can find them at JoAnns or Hobby Lobby, too. I was bummed that I couldn't find good Valentine Scrapbook paper, but these worked. 

I didn't know what to put in the card, but I thought it was the perfect opportunity to do a "friendly letter" lesson. lol. I wanted them to write what they loved about who they were giving the card to.

I started off by reading "The I LOVE YOU Book" from Todd Parr, one of my favorite author/illustrators.

Then I had them brainstorm ideas. 

We did a quick lesson on Friendly Letters (and by quick, I mean I'm going to definitely need to revisit this and reteach it. ha!)

I feel, as a mom, I would love to get these cards. They are SO super cute.

You can grab the letter templates for free - to use with or without the cards. Click the picture below to grab your letter freebie. 

Happy weekend!!

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