The Happy Learning Den: Love-fest 2017!!!

We did it again! (And we will do it again next year too!) Six classes of 5th grade students were "set up" by their parents and teachers for a Valentine's Day surprise!
All 5th grade students went home the week prior with a sealed envelope for their parents. Students were given explicit instructions not to open the envelope, that it was only for their parents. I told my class that it was information about middle school, and that if they open it something important might fall out (insert devious smile here). One student told me the next day that he knew what was in the envelope. When I inquired about what he knew, he told me that he could only tell me outside the classroom. He told me that he read the first line as his mom was opening the envelope and saw the word "SURPRISE" written on the first line. So he knew the truth. That middle school teachers from all the schools were going to come and surprise them. I LOVED THIS!
Of course I played along. I told him that under no circumstances was he to tell anyone else. That he would ruin the surprise for others. He then looked down and told me that he already told 2 of his friends in class. Lol! I told him not to tell anyone else... it spread like wildfire!
February 13th, from 2-7pm parents came to decorate their child's desk. Of course some parents weren't able to come due to a variety of reasons. Thankfully, parents donated extra balloons and decorations after they were done with the ones they wanted. I had also gone to the dollar store and bought several different balloons and other decorations. This way no student was left out.
February 14th, students were not allowed into the hallway. This gave parents time to sneak into the classrooms and wait to surprise their child. When all 5th graders were allowed up, we told them that inside the classrooms were middle school teachers waiting to give them an important presentation. And then they went inside and saw the explosion of love:

Once parents left (around 8:15), I had controlled chaos for the rest of the day. :-) I showed a Valentine's Day Idiom PowerPoint that I created. Idioms about love! Perfect timing! Once I had shown the PowerPoint, and students had a few silly discussions, students took the 5 question quiz at the end of the PowerPoint. (This quickly brought their energy down for a few moments since now they started to realize that there would also be work on this day- not just a party day.
After the quiz, they wrote stories using candy heart stickers that I bought at the Dollar Store. The only rule was that it had to be "appropriate" for school, and that it would be read out loud. This was also a perfect day for students to write thank you letters for all the Donor's Choose projects that had been funded this school year... I never seem to be able to find time to do that. I was very happy with how excited they were to thank people for donating to the classroom.
I have a variety of center games, some that I created and others that I purchased on Teachers Pay Teachers... that I put out for learning rotations. We also played Scoot with some task cards that I created for review. I wasn't planning on playing Scoot, but a few students requested to play. How can I say no to learning? :-) So I managed to get two games of Scoot squeezed into the day! The first one that students played was using my Operations and Algebraic Thinking task cards. Students have played this game multiple times, and they are getting pretty good at it. I decided to change it up a little. I didn't put the task cards in consecutive order around the room. This way I could make sure that they hadn't just memorized the answers and were actually doing the work.
Students also played Scoot using my Multiplying Decimals task cards. Once again, I didn't put the cards in numerical order because they have played so often. However, lots of learning was taking place so I was a VERY HAPPY teacher. And all of this took place in a classroom where it looked like Valentine's Day had exploded.

After lunch we had our Valentine's Day party, and then they cleaned up the room and took everything home. It was just as amazing as it was last year! Which you can read about here if you are interested. I hope this is something we continue to do every year. It is beautiful and oh so special!

I hope you enjoyed reading about Love-fest 2017!
~Sandy @The Happy Learning Den

The Happy Learning Den

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Sunday, February 19, 2017

Love-fest 2017!!!

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