One More Valentine Decoration

I am sure that you are getting a little tired of decorations for Valentine's Day, but I thought I would share a simple window decoration that we made in my classroom.  I have two large windows in my classroom and I love to keep the blinds up on the one window...I like natural light in a classroom.  I had my kiddos make stained glass hearts with tissue paper squares and clear contact paper.  I put the hearts through the laminator when the kiddos finished pressing their tissue paper squares onto the clear contact paper {window}.  This is a simple decoration that makes me smile when I pull into work and see my classroom window from the outside of the building.

I always have my kiddos make a holiday themed stained glass something to decorate our window.  Next up for display...shamrocks {of course!}  By the way, notice the other windows have the blinds pulled way down. :)

Fractions with Conversation Hearts

I know that many of you use conversation hearts for graphing activities, which I also do this activity with my firsties...but, I wanted to make good use of the conversation hearts, so I thought I would reinforce a math concept that we were learning...fractions.  I gave each of my students one box of conversation hearts and had them represent fractions of a set {1/2, 1/3, or 1/4} and also non-unit fractions {2/3, 3/4, ...}  I was so tickled that they really "got" fractions.  Here are a few pictures of my kiddos and our sixth grade buddies showing their knowledge.  Oh, I also found some great additional activities for conversation hearts at The First Grade Parade...I wish I would have come across these earlier...there is always next year!

Who knew?

Who knew that a dixie cup would make a great heart stamper...{ummm, not me until today that is!} and who knew that a $2.00 box of valentines would inspire my little firsties to write {ummm, not me again, until today!} I got the Olivia writing idea from The Inspired Apple {this gal is a-w-e-s-o-m-e!}  My firsties picked an Olivia valentine out of a special bag and wrote a short story about the story behind the picture.  I was unable to download the Olivia stationary from The Inspired Apple {because for some unknown reason, the site where it is located is not accessible from my school computer...crazy!}  So, I had to create my own version...it took a whole five minutes {seriously, it did!}  Oh, by the way...there is an entire site dedicated to Olivia.

After the kiddos shared their stories {so funny, by the way!}  I thought that the stationary should be matted onto a background for an optimal display,so since my firsties loved this writing activity so much, I thought this would be a great background to paste our Olivia stories onto.  We used a plain Jane dixie cup, and it worked great!   

Student wrote the following...Olivia is playing dress up with her cat.  The cat is wearing a blue hat.  Olivia was playing with her cat because her friend was not allowed to come over.

Also, our display is not quite complete...I will post a picture later {I thought of another addition!}

Love, love, love it!

After taking an extra deep breathe last night and realizing that I had my family tucked in bed for the evening...I did what any one of us would do...I grabbed the laptop and checked my favorite blogs for awesome ideas and this is what I found with help from the First Grade Parade.  The crafty lady behind this adorable valentine goodie is At Second Street.  I am totally making a trip to Wal*Mart this week and getting my supplies {sorry, I just had to put the star in there as my firsties do this every time they write in their journals.}  I just might get the ooohhh and aaahhh from my daughter's teacher when Emma takes these into her classroom...I am so pumped to make these.  Too bad that I am not pumped to make dinner tonight.

Did I mention the printables are free...at tatertots & jello.

Oh, and I'm making this...

I think I will add a super cute tag that reads...You melt my heart...I know, totally cute!

{The First Grade Parade}