Countdown to Valentine's Day Activities

I pulled my Valentine file out today (2/6) to see what I needed to be getting ready for our upcoming lessons.  I pulled out this:

I realized I needed to get going. I made this last year, it is my "Countdown to Valentine's Day" pocket of activities. (Obviously, I was gung-ho last year. I had a bunch of strips). :)

What was on the strips? Easy and fun activities like:
* Read a valentine book  *Make a valentine wreath (paper plate with center cut out and construction paper hearts glued on it)   *Make cinnamon rolls in the shape of hearts   * Go on a treasure hunt for hearts in the house(I hid paper hearts)   * Make a Valentine for the grandparents   * Color a valentine coloring page  * etc.

Each day they pull the corresponding number and we do the listed activity. This gives us something to do together and it is free and simple.

The Biggest Valentine Ever & Valentine Graphic Organizers

I wanted to share a few more Valentine things I have been working on. This winter I was introduced to "The Biggest..." series of picture books by Steven Kroll. I fell in love. I quickly bought "The Biggest Valentine Ever" and had to make a lesson/activity with it. Click here to see more about this lesson.

I've made 5 activities for 1st and 2nd grades to go along with the book "The Biggest Valentine Ever" by Steven Kroll.
Included are:
* Student directions page and 6 sequence cards that follow the book.
* Heart themed spelling/coloring worksheet.
* Heart Venn Diagram to compare and contrast 2 of the book characters.
* Past, Present & Future Verb Literacy Center - (Student directions page, sorting mat, 12 verb cards, and recording sheet).
* Heart creativity directions. 

The 2nd thing I made was generic graphic organizers that can be used with ANY Valentine themed fiction story. You can get all 6 Graphic Organizers here.

I have given you a FREEBIE!! The Cause and Effect Graphic Organizer is here at Dropbox for Free. Click here for your Free C/E graphic organizer. This one is not anything super fancy. I had to give you a freebie that didn't have all the frills so I could skip giving credit to all the clipart and artist sources. :)

Valentine's Day Tic Tac Toe Board for Centers

With Valentine's Day quickly approaching I wanted to share a fun way to do centers.

 

For this set of lessons click here.

 

Many moons ago, when I was teaching (or so it feels like many moons ago) I used a tic tac toe board similar to this one for my centers during Valentine's week. Since then I have updated it and improved on it. 

Students would get this board of 9 different activities.  (Notice it has a combination of math, reading, writing, crafts, etc). Students had to choose at least 3 activities in a  row to complete. Then they could do more for "bonus points"...but that was just me who liked to give bonus. 3 points added to a low grade can make a difference. :)

The kids loved these because they felt like they had such a choice in the matter. They didn't get these very often because they take more brain power and time.

Set up: What I would do is I would have 9 different file folders. Whatever supplies or copies they needed were in each folder. The front of each folder had a tic tac toe board and there was a smiley face, heart, star, or whatever symbol I chose in that certain spot on the board. 

For example: The supplies for the writing center were in a folder marked with a smiley face in the bottom right section.

*I would keep these 9 folders and reuse them each time I did a tic tac toe board center. 

I hope this gives you some idea of something different and creative to do for centers.