Short And Sweet: Valentines

My school has a great tradition of maker-thinking when it comes to Valentine's Day. Our fantastic instructional technology specialist runs a contest for students who build Valentine boxes that use simple machines (she does this for pumpkins in the fall, too). However, students don't need to make their Valentine boxes move to be interesting:

Like every other teacher, I'm always short on time, and especially so since we scheduled Exhibition (an IB-PYP school event) on Valentine's Day this year.

We had a scheduled school party which included treats, and we voted on which endangered animal species from the World Wildlife Fund to support this year to "share the love" this holiday.

Still, I wanted to prioritize relationships, no matter how harried and hurried the rhythm of the year was feeling. I didn't have time to write individual acrostic poems to students, but I could make time to notice things I appreciate about them. So I did.

I created simple Valentines to my class and added a new heart to our classroom window every day in February. The students would check to see what I added each morning. It was a small, simple way to show appreciation. I actually had more ideas than I had days!

I saved the best one for last. It's my why, and I want them to know!