Valentine's Day Writing Activity!

What is love? It has varied definitions and different people have different perspectives about it. And kids are not far behind. Even at this tender age they can come up with their own idea of love.

Few years ago, I had asked this question to my class and was amazed by the responses. The sweet munchkins gave such cute replies that I was floored. For one boy love was going on a boat with his family and for another it was kissing his mom. Some kids associated love with sharing and helping others, while some said it was about receiving and giving gifts. One sweet girl said, " she feels loved when her friends played with her."

I noted all their responses on a heart shape and displayed it in the hall. And boy oh boy! we got a lot of compliments for our sweet thoughts.

This valentine's you can ask children to draw what they feel about love and if they are a little older, ask them to write their thoughts.

Grab this FREEBIE from my store and get the kids to do some fun writing. I can assure you it will put a big smile on your face.

See my EMERGENT READER for valentine's day.

And do check out my old post on Valentine's Day for more ideas.

Valentine's Day Emergent Reader

Valentines day is around the corner and its a great day to talk about love that children share with their parents, feel for their grandparents, friends, teachers, siblings and other important people in their lives.

And since children spend a lot of time with their families at this young age, its best to start with a discussion about their families. I created a simple emergent reader with repetitive text for young readers. It focuses on sight words: 'I', 'My' and 'Love'.

Read it aloud to children and give them individual copies to read on their own. 

The books come in black and white and colored versions. They can fill color in the black and white version.

You can use this book for guided reading or simply place it in your literacy centers.

A glimpse from the book...

Grab your copy from HERE.

Valentines Day

Happy valentines to all my lovely readers. It has been a crazy week  in school with getting my kiddos ready for their first stage performance, preparing props,doing valentine related activities, assessments, making portfolios(its almost the year end for us) and keeping up with the regular curriculum.Whew !! I need a breather and of course want to be at the beach.

But my desperation to be at the beach ended for a brief moment :) after i saw my children perform on stage. We did a rendition of "Swimmy" by Leo Lionni and i must say my kids were marvelous.  Two of my students mixed up their lines and one of the girl who was a  narrator promptly corrected her friends. The goof up was so hilarious that the audience burst out laughing. 

I must admit that my happiness didn't end there.Some of my kiddos made valentines cards for me and a very talented friend of mine gave me this lollipop with a sweet message.

In the class, we talked about spreading love and expressing it in different ways. I read the story"Clifford, We Love You" to the children and then we brainstormed  how we can  make someone we love happy.

Children also made a valentine card for their parents. They put the pieces of the heart together and wrote 'I love you to pieces'.

During the week, we had also talked about the importance of having friends and discussed what friends like to do together.

 During circle time, i put the names of all the children in a basket and each child picked up one stick to give a compliment to the friend whose name they had chosen.

I too wanted to express my love for the little ones and gave them cookies with a tag which said "You are one smart cookie". I wanted to bring out the baker in me and bake the cookies myself, but the exhaustion was too overwhelming. The good ol' bakery near my neighborhood came to my rescue, though i intend to bake soon.

I was experiencing happy moments through the day, and my friends decided to go out for coffee to celebrate valentines day and our friendship. And what could be better than downing caramel macchiato's in a cozy corner at Starbucks on a wet and cold winter day.

My husband added more happiness to my day by getting me my favorite white flowers.

I hate to admit that the events of the day dulled my beach obsession a bit. But what the heck! i am happy right now and  want to cherish all the happy moments that i experienced today and believe that the beach will happen soon to make me even more elated.

Happy Valentines Day! Hope you enjoy your day as much as i did.