Valentines day in Second Grade

       So, being a first year teacher, the only experience I have had with holidays in school came from my student teaching experience. I have always heard that Valentines Day and the day after Halloween can be the two WORST days for teaching. Well due to my school's schedule, our Valentine party fell on the day BEFORE valentine.s. Meaning the kids stuffed themselves FULL of processed junk, sugar, and red dye 40, all to come back the next day for the actual holiday. So not only do I have Valentines Day with them...but I have the effect of the day after Halloween; sugar - crazed seven and eight year olds in my classroom. I just knew when I walked into morning meeting that the day was over (at 7:30 in the morning!). My only saving grace was that in my anticipation of this, I planned a day full of heart themed, on your feet, move around, activities. There was no way I was going to be able to keep these kids in their seats, so I did not even fight it!

       One of my smoothest lessons came during math - telling time. This "find your valentine" game was super cute and the kids were so  excited to search the room looking for their valentines. The idea was that each kid decorated an anonymous "Valentine card" that had a certain time on it. The time on the card that they decorated was the time they drew on their paper watches that they put on. Then I collected all of the cards and redistributed them randomly, and the students had to find the person who was wearing the "watch" that matched the time on the card they received. It went really well, and did not force these hyper little ones to sit still - SO I thought I would share my hope that even on the craziest day of the year, learning was STILL taking place in room 20.