Happy Heart Day!

Three years ago when I was teaching first, a little girl did not bring me anything for Valentine's Day.  It was not a big deal.  After school, an older sibling of hers asked me if I knew that she had bought my valentine but the reason I did not have one was because she ate it.  In that moment, it kind of summarized my year.  That year was SO hard for so many reasons.  I think it was the first year that I truly felt the shift in education.  Those children needed more love than it felt I knew how to give.  It ranks up there with my first year in difficulty.  Most years, the children give you back more love than you ever give but there were not a lot of hugs or loving moments exchanged.  I just kept plugging with the belief that I might not ever see the fruits of my labor which is easier said than done.  There were so many tears and feelings of inadequacy that year.  I think about those kids so much when I plan and prep.  They changed me, completely for the better.  Every group should do that but this group has made me go back and back again to the importance of relationships in this career.  It makes my day when they smile and say hi in the hallway.

Last week because of a schedule change, part of kindergarten recess overlapped with fourth grade's.  I saw the little girl who ate my chocolates and with Valentine's approaching, I had to ask her if she remembered that.  She ducked her head when I asked her and said "yes, that is so embarrassing".  I told her how much it makes me laugh and think of her so she should not be embarrased.  I was just happy I got to share that moment with her.  

Fast forward to yesterday, party day at school.  It was also class picture day which meant all the teachers were in the gym to have staff pictures before our Frday assembly.  As I am walking out to go pick up my kids who were eating breakfast, the same student catches me and says, "I have something for you."  She brought me a box of heart chocolates.  It made my day and it had nothing to do with the chocolates.  Let's be honest, it is those moments that I am living for.  There are not always enough of them or enough that we get to see first hand how even those hard years shape their lives.

This week, we celebrated friendship and love.  

We are working on kindness and respect all the time!  We had a challenge each day, some of days they were easier than others!

Living on the edge for me is deciding to do an activity or lesson at the last minute. It was an adventure hunting for Hershey's Hugs the night before party day.  My class loved this!  They were fascinated by the differences between a Hug and a Kiss.

We water colored on Friday.  We talked about positive and negative space.  They also loved this!

The finished product!

Growing up my paternal grandfather would always buy my grandma her flowers and chocolates the day after Valentine's.  I never really understood it.  My grandma told me it was because when they were raising children, they had no money.  He was doing the most he could with what they had.  For the longest time, I thought it was a sweet story.  Now though, I really think he was wise and knew that it was not so much the gift that was given but the heart it was given with.  Wouldn't life be so much better if we lived every day and moment like we do on February 14th?

Happy Heart Day!

I keep anticipating that things are going to slow down.  I aim getting through the hurdles and milestones of one week only to find that the next week holds just as many.  It's hard to believe there are only 2 weeks of February left and 4 weeks until Spring Break.  Really?  Where does the time go? 

With that realization it's time to start reassessing for my third quarter progress reports, begin entering grades, and get my kindergarteners ready for student led parent teacher conferences.  Yikes!

I don't hate Valentine's Day but I think it's overrated.  Hallmark and chocolate companies make a killing off of people that are not kind to each other and then suddenly want to show love on this one day of the year.  However, teaching has made me love it and embrace it.  The week was full of great moments in anticipating of our celebration but it was so fun to see them get excited about box covered in red and pink paper with a heart cut out. 

A couple of snow days the week prior really threw off my game.  I felt as though I was playing catch up all week long in addition to getting ready for Valentine's.

The week before when it was single digits outside and outside recess was something we had long forgotten about, we tasted hot chocolate as a part of our snack.  Before we drank it, we talked about our five senses and asked children to think about those as they enjoyed it.  We had begun writing descriptive words before the snow came so we spent some time last week finishing it up.  They are really doing some amazing things as writers.  

 

Every time they reference resources they can use, something they know, or the word wall, I tend to get excited.  You know those moments when you feel as though you have preached something until your blue in the face and they still are not taking ownership, how utterly frustrating those are.  As frustrating as those moments are, it makes it so worthwhile when they begin to independently do things.  Our writing workshop is starting to really rock and roll.  I still feel like a ping pong ball as I bounce around helping children, pointing to the word wall, and giving reminders but they are finally starting to exhibit some independence! 

I took pictures of all my children over a month ago for this pose and idea that I saw on Pinterest.  I suppose it is a good thing I was ahead of the game but we spent last week getting the valentine ready for their family.  It was a lot of teacher prep but my families loved it!

We have been reading tons of Robert Munsch stories over the last month.  If you have never heard of him or read his books, you should check out his website. It is an amazing resource.  He has saved my life on a few occasions but more specifically he did often during my first year.  You know those moments when you have a few minutes and you are not sure what to do - let them listen to a Robert Munsch story.  He is a story teller and it is amazing how engaged they are when they listen to his books.  Once you introduce him though, be ready for them to beg for more!  This week, we listened to Love You Forever.  It is a story that almost all of them have heard and I knew this.  We have been working on making connections, both text to self and text to text.  We talked through this before listening to the book and for my children who are still wanting to share their connections by blurting, I had them hold up a c with their fingers as they made connections.  I partnered them up after listening to the story and had them share their connections with each other before choosing a connection to share with the whole group.  One of my little boys asked me, "do you ever feel like that mom in the book?"  I said, "I love you like that mom in the book". 

We began our 3D shape museum this week.  It is so hard for me to deal with "stuff".  It is only fitting that I had valentine boxes and 3D shapes over taking my classroom on the same week.  The children brought shapes from home and I collected some as well.  They helped me classify where the shapes would go and then we played I Spy throughout the week using descriptive words to describe the shapes.  We had not talked about rectangular prisms yet so that shape was introduced as well as talking about real life example.  I asked them if they could think of examples right off the bat.  I almost regretted it until one little girl raised her hand and said "door".  Then children began raising their hands and naming off a variety of examples. 

Some other fun things we did this week...



Valentine Photo Booth - pictures for parents as well as photo booth pictures during book buddies.  Best $5.00 I have spent in awhile!  They loved it!  I will probably add these props into dramatic play for fun.

We listened to The I Love You Book by Todd Parr as well as Dear Mr. Blueberry by Simon James and introduced letter writing.  They love it.  They have been writing letters to me, class mates, peers, family, and other teachers.  I added the letter template to our writing choice for daily 5 this week.

I read The Biggest Valentine Ever by Steven Kroll and before I even asked they were making predictions on what might happen in the story and how it would end.  We did some interactive writing as we identified the characters, setting, and sequence of the story.  It was really neat to watch them make the connection and verbalize once we had written the name of the town: Mouseville and use that resource because they knew that mouse and house rhymed. 
 

 

My school holds an arts festival annually to raise money to promote the arts at my school.  We are blessed in that we have a work room full of paint, water colors, and almost anything you could think of you might want.  Over the past few years, a guest artist who is also a teacher in the building comes in and does a canvas painting with each class.  The paintings are auctioned off and then that money is used to buy supplies.  It is one of my favorite school wide events.  I found this idea on Pinterest and decided it is what I wanted to do with my class for the arts festival.  The lines were drawn on the canvas but my children painted the canvas and stars.  We are currently in the process of gluing on buttons and other fun knick knacks.  I love it!  I feel blessed to work with such talented people.