Valentine's Day Fun and Games

Mommy couldn't, so I spent a lot of time celebrating Valentine's Day in school classrooms yesterday. It was fun. When I spend time in classrooms, without fail I come away thankful for teachers, and grateful that I'm not one any more. Both the girls have been blessed with wonderful teachers ever since they've been in school - yes, public school.

Miss Feisty's teacher this year is a young mom with kids in the same school. She is very soft spoken, kind, and loves Feisty. I attended Feisty's conference last night and she's growing by leaps and bounds in her reading and math abilities.



The room mothers did a terrific job on their Valentine party. They had two fun projects, and good healthy snacks (I know, I know, but it's the way of the world in this school - which is good). They got plenty of the other kind of stuff from each other!

One of the mothers brought these cute mail boxes from Oriental Trading Company for the kids to decorate.

Then they made these adorable headbands, or crowns, if you will.



She has a wonderful mentor who comes in every Monday to spend time with her and love on her. This was her normal time to be there, so it worked out really well - Feisty had lots of help and love.




They made their snacks - fruit cabobs. Miss Feisty concentrated so hard on making hers just right. She doesn't like strawberries, but she used quite a few to make it really pretty.

I went home for a few hours, then back in the afternoon, just before school was out for the day, for a quick party in Care Bear's classroom. Unfortunately CB wasn't feeling her best yesterday (and is home today, much worse - probably should have stayed home yesterday, but didn't want to miss the big doin's). I felt bad for her, because she wasn't herself at all.

This teacher is very young, very energetic, creative, and dearly loved by the kids. She's so petite that it's hard to spot her at times among the kids. They were out for recess when I got to the room. I've been there several times, and each time I am overwhelmed by the amount of stuff she has hanging and pinned up and stacked all over this room. Every square inch is taken up with learning opportunities and fun "stuff." It seems a bit overcrowded, but the kids know exactly what everything is and what it is for. She has a knack for classroom control that is awe inspiring. She talks so fast, but has certain words that just bring them to attention immediately. Impressive.

The bright papers on the bulletin board are compliments written by the kids to each other and posted there.

When I taught school, the teacher's desk was large and was centered in the front of the room. Here's her tiny little space. I love the question.

For some reason, she had no mother helpers this time, so she had everything incredibly well organized and pretty much did it all herself. They were divided into 3 groups - CB's first stop was the snack station - juice, granola bars, and many varieties of goldfish crackers.



They then went to a work station where they ate and chose an activity - CB chose to do a Rebus message. They didn't have much time, so she only got about a third done. Do you think you could finish it??

The second station was a craft project. They had fun with the googly eyes - the teacher was amused.





The third station was passing out their cards to each of their classmates' decorated boxes.





CB received this awesome balloon and candy machine from her mentor.




The last few minutes were spent looking at the Valentine cards they received - much different than the ones of our youth!


Thought she wasn't feeling well, she managed a lovely smile with her teacher, Ms. G.