Valentine's Day!

For the Halloween party I served the food too soon.  For the Winter party we had too many tasks to accomplish them all.  I think now I have it figured out.  One project, one Valentine's work book, and food served the last 15 minutes of the party.  I only let 5 kids pass out cards at a time, so it worked well.  I actually came through with my maze idea!  I love when I think of something and I actually do it.

The kids LOVED them - a lot more then I thought they would.

Their project was to make a book for their parents (or grandparents, or aunts, or uncles, whomever they preferred)  The front title was "I Love You"  by: Student Name.

The book had between 2 and 6 pages.  Each page said "I love you because..." and then they finished the sentence.

Normally I would have had them do more on their own, but I just did a sentence starter so we could get it done in the amount of time allotted and it would still be cute.

One of my little girls made this adorable valentine box for me to collect all my valentine's in.

Oh, and on a Teacher of the Year note... our amazing custodian put up my pole for me so I have a designated parking spot.  So excited :-)

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Tornadoes and Teacher of the Year!

This morning we had a gathering and I was awarded Teacher of the Year!  I'm so amazed and humbled!  I have awesome colleagues, so to know that they think I am great is just the best feeling.

We also had a short day for the kiddos and the teachers were off to Professional Development.  We have been learning about storms all week so today we focused on tornadoes and made some tornadoes with our big buddies (a third grade class down the hall).  The students thought this was the best!  It's so easy too.  I bought a case of the cheap bottled water (since you have to fill the bottles with water anyway...).  I tore the labels off and gave one bottle to each student.  We put in a few squirts of dish soap and some glitter.  I found the best idea for adding the glitter - just wet a pencil in water, stick it in the glitter, then put it in the bottle of water.  The glitter washes off into the bottle.  Simple, clean, no mess - and the perfect amount.  The buddies had a great time shaking the bottle and finding the best way to make a tornado.  We found that it is easiest to see if you turn the bottle cap side down and shake it very fast like a maraca as opposed to swirling or spinning the bottle.  I failed to bring my iPad to school today so no pictures of all the fun.  Maybe next time.

Still, here is a link to a great video with some visuals on how to make the tornado (including the pencil in glitter trick) Click on the picture below.