We started our day with some Valentine's Math. We were given a handful of conversation hearts and we sorted them, graphed them, tallied them, added them, you name it and we probably did it! The kids were so excited that they were using candy to count in math. They were really hoping to get all the candies in the end but I broke it to them that they are old candies that are just for counting! Funny enough, I had a small box on the side and let them try one and a majority were very disappointed in the taste of these hearts haha.
^^ This is my FAVOURITE part of a multi-grade classroom. The older students helping the younger students learn. My older students never complain when I ask them to help out their friends in fact they get excited. I think it's because when they were young they were sitting at that table looking up to their peers and in awe and now FINALLY they are the ones helping the littles.
Then when we were all done we played Valentine Bump. This bump game is amazing. The kids think I change the game for every holiday which is precious but I just change the colour of the paper, the clipart images, and the name. I finally put away Boo Bump (which is our Halloween version). It's an awesome math game and the Grade 3's have no idea that they are multiplying when we play the "skip counting" version.
We of course had to do some Valentine's writing. We talked about making complete sentences using a capital at the beginning, punctuation at the end, and of course lots of detail!
We played Valentine Bingo!
We opened our Valentine cards and read all the lovely things we had to say to each other. This part is just lovely on a busy day. They bring out a card one-by-one and read out loud (of course) what the card says and then thank out loud (of course) to their friends for the card. They are so sweet and kind this wonderful class of mine!
The day isn't over yet! We broke off into our house teams and visited all the classrooms to do some sort of activity. In our classroom, we created "friendship" beads. I brought out FIMO which is this amazing clay-like plasticine that when baked in the oven turns into hard beads.
In Mr. D's room they worked on some seriously detailed colouring pages!
In Ms. Schott's room we decorated sugar cookies and played a balloon game!
I took all of the student's beads, charms, magnets, etc home with me to bake. I feel like I could easily run a bead business now that I have this volume of baking under my plate!
I can't wait for them to see their finished pieces tomorrow. They all put a lot of thought and insight into what they were making. I actually think they all thought of someone to make it for (set a purpose) and then created something with that in mind.
Photo Credit: Amelia is a volunteer in our classroom and has graciously taken some photos of our Valentine afternoon.
** I really was conscious of other students (outside of our classroom) faces in photos I really tried hard to only pick the ones that their backs were turned and so forth. If you find a photo that you don't want on our classroom blog I totally understand and will take it down.
Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!!! (Yes, I know it's not Valentine's Day but in our world it sure was).
