Valentine's Day Recap

Whew what a day Friday was!  We had a lot of fun on Valentine's Day (although we never have fun....*wink wink*).
Our day started with our RIF party in the gym. The kids were all excited (and a little crazy) as we headed back to the classroom to Skype with our new penpals from Massachusettes.  In this post here, I mentioned how we used Skype to connect to another classroom of 1st graders in MA.  This connection began because Mrs. Hewitt had made a donation to our Chair Balls project on DonorsChoose.org.
Her classroom also uses the stability balls and she has been a great source of information for me as we ventured down this new journey.   We had used Skype in January to connect with her classroom and learn how they learn with the chair balls and get the kids' perspectives before we jumped onto them.   Mrs. Hewitt and I thought this connection would be a great opportunity to get our kiddos to connect in multiple ways. So for starters, we are going to become PenPals.  Remember "back in the day" when you would actually write someone, put it in the mail and wait days to hear back from them?  That's what we're doing! We are building relationships, learning about peers that live outside our community, learning how to write a letter and carry on a conversation over long periods of time, as well as figuring out how to share our learning with another classroom.  So after the RIF party we Skyped with our new buddies and they got to actually see their penpal now that we had them "paired" up.  We also made them cards and I have put them in the mail! Excited to receive our first letters!

We also got to create Valentine's boxes. Okay, they weren't boxes but they were great for our Valentines.  The kids seemed to really enjoy being able to personalize their plates in anticipation of them being overflowing with Valentines!

There was just enough time to hand out valentines so they would be ready and waiting for us when we got back from Counselor and Library.

The kids were very concerned about whether or not we would be having the party when they got back!   While they were in the library, we filled plates with the treats that were brought in.  By the time the kids came back in the room, their desks were flooded with pink and red and cards and treats and oh my!   I believe they had a great time!