Valentine’s Day Party Ideas…

Looking for some ideas for your Valentine’s Party this week? Here are some of the games that I had set up for my students for our classroom Valentine’s Day Party!

Station 1: Pin the lips on the teacher! (I got this idea from sweet Lindsey at The Teacher Wife.)

I had one of my third grade student DRAW that picture of me!!! Is that not amazing? She has an amazing talent!

Students were blind folded and one at a time, they had to try stick the lips sticker on my right cheek. A parent helper was there to gently turn the kids around five times before they started to walk towards the picture! The kids loved this!

Station 2: Mend the broken hearts!
Students divided up into teams and had to work together to find the math fact match!

The parent at this station timed the students each time. They really got some great multiplication practice!

Station 3: Tower of Love
I got the idea for this game, here. Each student had their own box of conversation hearts that they took to each station. Using their box of conversation hearts, each student had to build a tower with the hearts. The tower must stand for 5 seconds or more and the person with the tallest tower of love wins!

Station 4: Chopstick Pick up!
Using the same box of conversation hearts, the students had to use their chopsticks to transfer all of their candy hearts from the paper plate to the paper cup.

The parent helper gave the students an allotted time for them to transfer as many hearts as they could…using the chopsticks!!

Station 5: Push the rose petal relay!
I bought fake rose petals and a straw for each child from the dollar store. Students were divided into teams of two and had to use their straw to blow the rose petal from the start to the finish line! The kids *LOVED* this one and got *really* loud in the hallway during this game!!! You were warned!

Last but not least, the students passed out their valentines and ate some treats!!!

Last week, we finished some fun friendship and “love” themed lessons.
Students worked with their friend for a fun twist on an expository writing piece. After reading “Cook A Doodle Doo” in our Treasures reading basal, the students were familiar with the organization of a recipe. We used that story as an inspiration to cook up own recipe- for friendship!

Ever since our acts of kindness kickoff, my students have been a tad bit obsessed with saying “That was a random act of kindness!” for every kind act they see. It makes me so happy to see that the lessons really have made an impact on them. As I mentioned before, this is a challenging group of students and I am so grateful that I seem to be making a positive impact with them. It has taken us all year to get to the point that we are right now- working as a team, focused on learning! Since my students are still so into the kindness theme, I thought this lesson would be a great way to celebrate the positive interactions and friendships that they started with each other.

As a class, we brainstormed key qualities of a good, solid friendship- laughter, kindness- and used these as our ingredients.

Students then worked with their friend to write a recipe, using the ingredients we brainstormed and the organization of a recipe. As they were writing, I took their picture together. We then published their ingredients, recipe, and picture for our bulletin board.

You can cook up your own friendship recipe by visiting my TPT store or save 10% by purchasing directly from my website:

Expository Writing: A Recipe for Friendship!

And last but not least, I taught one of my all-time favorite lessons!!! I blogged about this last year, but wanted to share it again because it integrates reading, writing, a whole lot of self-reflection, an art project, and some very important LIFE LESSONS!!!!

How often do you hear students talk about how much they LOVE their family, friends, toys, pets, school, sports, or of course, you- their teacher??? All the time, right??? While I love to hear my students profess their love of everything, I especially like to hear them talk about how much LOVE they have for themselves! This does not happen as much as I would like- especially when students get older and are much more aware of peer pressure. To begin, I first read a few of my favorite picture books about have a positive self image and self love.

I love the book, Dear Girl by Amy Krouse Rosethal

This is another great book to read aloud: One of a Kind, by Chris Gorman.

I then passed out a mini mirror to every student in the class. You can purchase some at the Dollar store, ask your students to bring them to school, or even check your science supply rooms- you never know where you might find them!

I called the students to sit in a circle on the carpet and asked them to look in the mirror and share what they saw and how they feel. Yes, there was giggling, whispering….so I went first. “On the outside, I see my blue eyes and feel happy because I like them. On the inside, I see how I am a compassionate person and I care about my students.” The boys and girls followed my example and shared their own thoughts about what they see on the outside from looking at their reflection in the mirror and also who they are in the inside (what the mirror does not reflect!)

We continued by sharing the positive “inside and outside” qualities that we notice about each other- showed some love to each other.

We then learned about the different adjectives that could be used to describe our personality (positive ones of course!) and create a cute, little art project that we turned into a bulletin board.

If you are interested in this lesson, you can find it at my TPT store by clicking here: Awesome Adjectives: I Love Me! 

Or you can save 10 % by purchasing directly from my website: Awesome Adjectives: I love Me!

Are you ready for your Valentine’s Day party!!??? Any fun games or activities you want to share with us?
Have a great day!