Valentine's Day

Every Valentine's Day for the last five years, I've done this really sweet activity with my kids that is one of the highlights of our year.  It's quite simple and requires only a large paper heart for each child.  We begin by talking about what compliments are (this is a concept the kids are very familiar with from our Class Meetings) and I list examples on the board as they are suggested.  By February, we try to primarily give compliments that are specific, authentic, and focus on internal rather than external qualities ("I like the way you help me with multiplication" and "You always help people work out their disagreements" instead of "I like your shirt" and "You're nice") but anything positive that the children contribute is accepted. 

I then give each child a heart and have them write their name in large print in the middle.  I have a little clicker that is actually supposed to be used for dog training (shh!) but you can use any type of signal you want, such as a bell, to indicate when time is up.  When I click the clicker, each child passes his/her heart to the person on the right.  (We practice and I walk them through the passing during the first few rounds, of course).  They have just under a minute to write a compliment on the person's heart.  When they hear the clicker again, they pass the heart on and write a compliment for the next person's heart.  This continues until each child has a heart with a compliment from each person in the class.  During this time, I sit with the children and participate in the rotations so that they have a compliment from me and I have a heart at the end, as well. 

Afterwards, it's so heartwarming to watch the kids read their compliments- they beam and grin from ear to ear and frequently I hear them thanking one another for their kind words.  It's a great team-building activity and really conveys the spirit of Valentine's Day- love and kindness.  I've had multiple parents tell me they cried when they read their child's heart.

Caution: Most years I have one kid in the classroom who writes something mean on a few of the hearts.  It's very difficult to prove who has done it, and once it's written, the damage is done.  I've learned to caution the kids about this before the activity- I tell them in vague terms (so as not to give them ideas!) about cruel incidents in the past and we talk about how the kids who recieved those insults must have felt.  I then warn them that if they are to write anything that is less than complimentary on a heart, they will not be able to participate in the Valentine's Day party- and I do enforce that rule.  Also, if I suspect that someone will do this, or if I have a child that the entire class really dislikes, I read the hearts myself before I pass them out to the kids to keep.  You know your class, so you can decide what's needed. 

Variations and Adaptations: Sometimes I laminate the hearts for the kids so they will last longer (I tell them to keep the hearts in a safe place at home and show them to their grandchildren one day, which they think is a hilarious concept).  I slice down the film to seperate the hearts and then give them to the kids to cut out at the end of the party (to save me time).   If you have younger students who take too long to write, you can make this into a center that the kids complete over the course of the week, or have the hearts spread out in the back of the room and call a few kids at a time to go back and write on them while the rest of the class does other Valentine's Day activities.  If you have a large class, you can do what I did when I had 28 kids- half the hearts in one day's rotation and half the following day.  This prevented the kids from getting tired of writing or having difficulty coming up with authentic compliments.

Valentine's Day recycling project from Mrs. Renz

Seasonal poems and seasonal sight word bingo games

100th Day of School ideas from Mrs. Renz