Valentine's Day Fun!!!

We've been swamped! I can't seem to keep my head above water, and behaviors have just not been on target this past couple weeks. I barely manage to get my family meals and hit the bed for a couple hours rest before dragging myself back up to do it all over again, as you can tell by the lack of posts here lately!!

Today I was ready to have some fun with my students. To just enjoy them and enjoy a special day! I know everyone feels the pressure of meeting all the standards and engaging all students all the time. If I'm feeling overwhelmed then my students must be too! Learning is hard for them and sometimes it's just nice to do something fun!!

Now I didn't throw out the standards for the day and just play games or anything (I am sure no one does that these days right!!!) but I found some awesome valentines activities that met the standards and were still fun!! I don't have my students with me all that long and I still want to make everyday productive, but I wanted all of us to just relax a little. It's so funny how much kids can get done when it doesn't look like actual work, or is disguised as a game! We had a great day, here's a look at what we did..........

 My 2nd graders read Valentine books and filled out this Valentine Story Elements Map (I can't remember where I got this, I've had if for since last year, if it's your please let me know I'd love to give you credit)!

 Then we enjoyed cupcakes an juice of course!!!

 My 6th graders started off with this math game I created. I used round button shaped cutouts I got from the Target dollar spot at Christmas time and cute Valentine scrapbooking stickers from Walmart for 88 cent to make problem cards. The stickers covered the four white dots that made the circles look like buttons and made these perfect! I wrote problems on the back of each card and placed them all around the room. I numbered each card from 1-24 and then gave each student a recording sheet with 24 boxes on it. They worked their way around the room answering each question, recording their answers in the correct boxes so we could correct them together easily!

Here they are making  their way around the room! I was surprised how much they liked this and how well they worked, I think similar activities will be used in the future!!!

Once they finished the "around the room review" we had some conversation heart fun! We recorded the number of hearts we had and specific colors in fractions, then found the decimal and percentage that each color represented. We shared the data as a class and then found the mean, median, mode, and range of the class data we had recorded. Again, add some candy hearts and all the sudden math is not so hard!!

We weren't done with the hearts, we played a "minute to win it" type game and recorded our data for that as well. Students were given one minute to see how many hearts they could stack on top of one another. They recorded how many they had for each of five tries and then found the mean, median, and mode of that data.

During reading we made words using the letters in the word "valentine" in the word work center, we read about valentine's day and filled in a main idea/details graphic organizer in the comprehension center, and in the writing center we used this adorable activity from Savvy-Second-Sixth Graders.

 Students used these conversation heart stickers I had (they came in boxes of valentines I bought over the years) to write letters using at least four heart phrases. They turned out so cute!!

 They struggled a little at first but this freebie came with an example that really helped!!

Finally we played another minute to win it type game that was a big hit! I cut up ten different valentines day cards I'd bought on sale last year and placed all the pieces in these baggies....

each group was given a baggie and one minute to put as many valentines back together as possible. They loved it!!

We had a great fun filled day! And to top it off I had a couple of students I don't normally see stop by to say hi! They were in my room a few times for testing and they asked when they could come back to "The room of Happiness", I asked what they meant and they said they just love my room because  it felt so happy there!! Apparently they told their friends and now they are all referring to my classroom as "The Room of Happiness" and that makes all the work I do worth every minute of it!!

Hope you all enjoyed your Valentine's Day!!! I'm off on a long weekend and can't wait to create some new stuff to work with next Tuesday when we return!! Have a great weekend everyone!