Valentine’s Day is approaching and my firsties are getting flirtatious. I know, I know, Grade One, gasp… but it is so funny. One girl today received a beautiful portrait of her and a special paper crown made with hearts and written on it was “I love you.” (complete sentence upper case letter, period, perfect!). Anyway, the receiver was not too pleased at all. She was embarrassed and… can a six year old be offended?! She was offended.
Off I went to find out who the admirer was; the receiver would not let up. Clues included paper scraps, a glue with no lid on it, and crayons stashed in the corner between my desk and shelf. Soon enough some “friends” came to rat one of their own out. I was not convinced that it was the boy they were naming, though… this boy can barely write his own name legibly let alone write a full sentence! But, I did my due diligence, pulled him aside and asked him if he was the admirer. He fessed up right away. After praising him on writing so well, he admitted that he convinced another boy to write it out for him because, “Mrs, Khan, I can’t write.” (with the emphasis on the “I” meaning, “well duh, of course I had to get someone else to write it!”). He also asked one of our grade 7 lunch monitors to draw a picture of his love (it was also suspiciously a little too stylized). He then said with a sigh, “I love ____, she’s sooo beautiful.” Here’s a pic of the remnants of his present. Oh boy, he’s got it bad!
I returned it to the girl and she proceeded to rip it up. Thankfully her admirer was off smashing puzzle pieces. Of course then after school I dug through the recycling bin because I just had to share the story with you!
Now this event got me going on revisiting my cut and paste centre (I don’t know why I call it that, it’s a place where kids can do arts and crafts, draw, write stories, etc…), I’m going to put in some materials to make Valentine cards and write Valentine stories with including some words on card stock that they can use to help them write (no anonymity allowed!). Here’s a printable of some fancy Valentine words for you.
As many of you do, I use this time of year to talk about friendship and the qualities of a good friend. One of my favourite activities is this friend interview. I pair up students who usually do not play or sit together and get them to interview each other. It’s a great way to practice listening and patience (ahhh, great qualities in a friend!).
And last but not least, here are some Valentine and friendship songs and poems that are on CanTeach:
Happy Teaching,
Iram