Valentine's Day Shelf Work

I wanted to post a few pictures of some of the shelf work that the kids did during the month of February.  This is work that they do independently or in a small group while I am either working one-on-one with a student or with a small group.

For this activity the students had to draw three "love monsters" and then add those three numbers together.  This also helped the students practice writing out addition sentences.

This work was called "Roll and Draw a Love Bug".  I did this with my students last year and they loved it.  You and a partner each get a sheet of paper and take turns rolling the die.  For each number on the die you are told to draw a particular part of your "love bug".  The first person to complete their "love bug" wins!

This wasn't exactly a "Valentine" shelf work activity, but it was something my kids needed practice with in math and since it was pink I just went with it.  The kids had to make pink gum drops out of Play-Doh to complete the ten frames.

This was another shelf work activity that was a game for two people.  Each person would roll the die and then add ten to whatever number they rolled.  Then the person would find that number and cover it with one of their colored tiles.  The first person to get all of their colored tiles on the board wins!

This shelf work activity required the students to use red and pink colored pencils to color a heart picture.  The heart had numbers written around it and every section that had an even number you colored pink and every odd section you colored it red.

This shelf work had students fill in the missing numbers out of this 100s chart.  Since there were hearts on the chart instead of simple squares the kids were much more excited about doing it!

This is a game that I have several different versions of (depending on what time of year it is).  It is a two player game.  Each student rolls three dice and adds the three numbers.  Then they cover the corresponding heart with their color tile piece.  The part about this game that the kids love is that you can "bump" your opponent off if you roll the same number.

Since Valentine's Day is on the 14th we practiced tracing, writing, and spelling the number 14.

This shelf work was a simple color by number.  My girls really liked this one.

For this shelf work activity the students had to color certain numbers different colors to make a heart.

Since I have students for two years my goal is to get 2 rotations of shelf work for each Holiday so each student will get to do new shelf work each year.

Valentine's in April

No we didn't really celebrate Valentine's Day in April.....I'm just blogging about Valentine's Day in April.  The reason I'm so far behind.......GRAD SCHOOL!!!  It has completely taken over my life....literally I feel as if it is all I do.....besides teach and tutor! But after sitting in a faculty meeting this afternoon where we talked about blogging and seeing that my last post hadn't been since who remembers when I decided grad school homework or no grad school homework I had to find some time to catch up on the happenings of the Hill/Box cluster.  So get ready....I've just had 2 full glasses of tea....I'm stressed about upcoming grad school finals & comps so I might get real crazy and publish several blogs tonight!  So forgive me because they probably won't be in ANY kind of order, but order is not a word I seem to know the meaning of these days!

OK back to the kiddos and the cute/amazing things they have been doing!

I LOVE celebrating ANY holiday or any special occasion with my kids....I love getting to come up with new, creative activities for them to do.

 One activity that our intern, Ms. Wynne, came up with was an adorable box for the kids to put their Valentine's in.....and fortunately subway (one of the places the kids could order lunch from that month) sent the kids' lunches in these perfect sized boxes.  Ms. Wynne collected enough boxes for our class and spray painted them white (on her on time I might add).  Before our party Ms. Wynne (her name is Hallie, but you get used to calling someone Mr., Mrs. or Ms. when you teach!) brought in several different items and let the kids each decorate their own box.  The kids LOVED doing this.....they took so much care to where each and every sticker/paper/stencil went.

finished "mailbox"

Another great idea, and this one came from Mrs. Hill (see it is double hard for me to call her Margaret...#1 I say Mrs. Hill in front of the kids.....#2 she was my teacher....and it's just hard to call her Margaret...)....she went to the store and bought enough helium balloons for each child to have one and filled our room with them.  It was a wonderful idea!  When the kids arrived at school that morning they were so excited to see all of the balloons!  And I must say it did make everything a little more festive.....I mean who doesn't love a room full of balloons! The kids did a great job too.....once the "newness" wore off we were actually (believe it or not) able to get some work done in our room full of balloons!

Since I teach math, I always try to find fun math related activities for each of our special days.  We had just recently talked about odd and even numbers so I was really excited to find a odd/even Valentine coloring page.

Another math activity that Mrs. Hill did with our kids was finding a kiss on the 100s board.  Before "work time" Mrs. Hill hid several Hershey's kisses around the room....each kiss had a number (from 1 to 100) written on the bottom.  The kids had to find the kisses and then figure out where they went on the 100s board.  I'm not sure we found all the numbers.....I have a feeling a few were eaten before they made it back to the 100s board!

This picture is actually from one of the kids I tutor, but it was a valentine's activity so I thought I would share it.  This art activity had several hearts drawn on a piece of paper that overlapped.  Each heart had a color written on it.....the students used torn paper or tissue paper and glued them on the hearts......if the hearts overlapped, the student had to decide if the colors (of the two big hearts) were mixed together what color you would get.

This cute little game my students really enjoyed.  I don't know what it is about 5-7 year olds but you can get them to do just about ANYTHING if you tell them it's a game or a competition.  Almost everyday after lunch I say "I want to see who can clean up the room the fastest".....you would think I had told them I would give them all the chocolate in the world some of them move so fast!  This game was called "Roll and Draw a Love Bug".  A student would roll a dice and depending on the number they rolled, they would get to draw a body part of their "love bug"......the first person to completely draw their bug won!

So that in a nutshell was our Valentine's Day.  I'm sure I left out so much, but after more than two months those are the highlights! It was a wonderful day.....I believe I had more Valentine's gifts and was told "Happy Valentine's Day" more than I ever have been before.  Being with these 23 kids will make anyone feel special and loved!