Love is in the Air

Valentine's Day is quickly approaching and I always have my favourite activities that I do in my classroom that relate to love and kindness. My all-time favourite thing I do throughout the month of February is the Kindness Cushion. I first heard about this idea when I was subbing. Each day in February (or however long it takes to get through your class), a different student receives the Kindness Cushion, which they get to sit on for the day, and the Kindness Box. Inside the Kindness Box is a note from me thanking them for doing something kind in the classroom and a small package of Valentine Smarties. I love seeing the smiles on my students' faces when they read their special thank-you note from me!

I picked up my Kindness Cushion from Ikea for $4.99 years ago. The Kindness Box is from Michaels and I painted it red. You can grab a copy of my Kindness Note Papers here.

My must read aloud for Valentine's Day is "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch. This is a great book for making connections to the emotion of love and what their parents do to show them they love them. I also like to have my students think about what they would love forever and how they would show the emotion. This is one (of many!!) pieces of writing that warms my heart when I read my student's responses.

This year for Valentine's I'm going to attempt something new! We are in the middle of our Measurement unit in Math and I wanted to find something to connect Valentine's to measurement, but be fun and creative. After poking around a bit on Pinterest, I came across a post titled Candy Heart Catapult: Measuring Distance. After reading the instructions on how to build a catapult, I knew I had found my activity. I can already picture my students modifying their catapult to make it better. Fingers crossed all goes well on Friday...stay tuned for the results!

I"ll be back later this week to post about my upcoming 100th Day of School activities.