Valentine's Day--At Last

We were actually able to have class today. I wasn't sure, and of course, I obsessed about my decision. When I awoke this morning, a little before 7:00, it was snowing, so I ignored it. I got my little guy on the bus, got ready for work, watched some weather--they said it would stop, went to work. I look out the window at 9:00--still snowing. What do I do? My decision was to shorten the morning class by a half hour, take a half hour break, then have the afternoon class come for two hours.

I make the decision, call all the parents, get everything straightened out, and--you guessed it, by 10:00 the snow was done. A HUGE thank you to all the parents for your understanding!!!

We had a short day, but we did a LOT! We were able to get all our Valentine activities in. I always have the children make some Valentine bags for their "mailboxes." Everyone gets a white bag, they write their name on it by connecting dots, then decorate the bag with hearts.

As the children bring their Valentine's Day cards in, they deliver them to their friends by matching the name on the card to the name on the bag. This is NOT an unsupervised activity. There is always someone there to offer help and encouragement during the delivery process.

At some point during the day, after all the Valentine's cards are delivered, it's time to see what's inside the bag. This is always great fun. The children take their bags and open their cards and marvel at all the great goodies they received. (I never let them eat anything, in case of allergy concerns.)

Our final Valentine's Day fun is a game I call the Friendship Game. I made hearts out of construction paper, then I cut them in half. I laminated all of them because they take quite a beating. I sprinkle the half hearts on the floor and the children each choose a piece. They then have to find the friend with the matching half and create one heart together. We do this a few times so they can create hearts with different friends.

Hooray for Valentine's Day!