Valentine's Day (with love!)

The students thought they had died and gone to Heaven over this little writing assignment.  Because we are an "Apple School", using food in the classroom is discouraged, but sometimes food is the perfect motivator!  This idea was shared by "fanaticallyfirstgrade" on her blog site and seemed like the best way to bring real life into our introduction into writing an opinion.  Each student received one Hersey Kiss and one Hersey Hug.  After tasting small bits, we created a Venn diagram together.  They then decided which of the two chocolates they liked better and used the Venn diagram to create their own circle map.  They highlighted four of the ideas to then use in creating their reasons for liking that chocolate best, into sentences.  Finally, after editing, they wrote out their ideas including ensuring that adjectives were included.  The final verdict, Hersey Hugs -16 and Hersey Kisses - 1! (I have 5 students away on tropical vacations right now)

In all my years of teaching, I have never had a school organize a "dance" for the primary school students, but this one does!  My rules for attending was that the volume of the music needed to be appropriate (after all we just learned how delicate our ears are in our Hearing and Sound unit), and the lights had to stay on.  They had a blast, as you'll see from these photos...even with my old fashioned rules:

(The girls were mortified that I asked them to stand with the boys for this photo!)

They're doing the "Cha Cha Slide."

Completely spontaneous conga line!

A huge thank you goes out to the parents for providing the Valentine's Day lunch, with this great idea of individual cups of dip with celery and carrot sticks... 

apple juice, fruit kabobs, rice krispie squares and finger jello.

No one volunteered to bring heart shaped jam sandwiches, so I brought bread and jam, and the students made their own (had to follow directions...another reading activity).  They were a smash hit!  Loved that one girl told me "My mom never lets me make my own sandwich."  Now she can take on that responsibility on her own!

 

Using an idea from Pinterest, each student made their own house, complete with their address, so their friends could deliver their Valentines to the correct friend.

The students have been members of our primary classes "Kind Kids Club" and have been doing Random Acts of Kindness each day.  They decided to make this card for our principal and surprise him with it.  They were so pleased with themselves!

Love this!  We work on being good partners in all subject areas.  Look at this group effort to get some work finished...so sweet and so rewarding to see!

Then there is this little gem...the Apple School lady came in earlier in the week to ask the students what their favourite way to "sneak in a break" during the school day was.  She was going for ideas such as eating a healthy snack, running around with friends with recess, etc.  I didn't check out the student's responses before she put up their ideas on a bulletin board in the hallway.  This is the one that kills me!

This lad says "I sneak in a break by putting my head back and thinking of other things."  I'm guessing that is me at the front going "Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla"  Oh, the honesty of children!