Valentines and 100th Day of School

I was tossing around the ideas for this months blog post. I was torn between Valentines Day and the 100th Day of School. I thought to myself, "Why not do both?" So I came up with an easy, and FREE idea to share with you lovely teachers.

100 Reasons We "Heart" Our School

See what I did there ^

Please excuse all the weird feet in my pictures. They are our "Staring 2015 off on the 'Write' foot" papers. 

For us, the 100th day of school will be February 6th. I thought this would be a fantastic way to introduce the idea of the 100th day of school with my kids and decorate my classroom for Valentine's Day. 

As a class, we came up with reasons we love our school. Each student came up with a different reasons why they loved our school and I wrote it down on our white board. When then talked about how it would be boring if every student wrote "Miss Strosnider." We talked about how we can write down similar reasons, but not the exact same reasons. We came up with 5 other ways we could say "Miss Strosnider." The students brainstormed and came up with some great responses. We wrote down "My teacher," "Our teacher," "Miss Strosnider teaching us math," "Miss Strosnider teaching us reading" and so on. This was a great lesson for expanding vocabulary when writing. 

Each student had to come up with 5 different reasons why they love our school. I had 18 students that day, 18x5 = 90 reasons, we had some students make an extra fairy. They needed to write them down in a prewriting and I kept a running list so there were no repeats. The students really started to get into their writing when they found out that another student had already wrote down their idea. 

I created these black and white Valentine "fairies" (as my students call them) from clipart by Krista Wallden and Educasong. I printed them off on red, pink, and white construction paper. I printed off the copy of the boy and girl on white paper for their favorite thing they love about our school. 

I typed up all their responses, to make sure there were not any duplicates, and gave them each a copy. I passed out their one white response paper, a sharpie, and their list. They had to pick their favorite reasons why they love our school from their list and write it on the white paper. 

I collected the paper and allowed them to pick between the different fairies to write the rest of their responses. They cut out the red and pink papers and we hung them in the hallway. 

For centers, I allowed them to use "Miss Strosnider's REAL art supplies" to water color their white responses. I let them use my Prismacolor water color pencils. I wanted them to take pride in their work, and all of them really took their time and made amazing fairies. You can have your students use regular water colors have them color their white fairies. 

Here are some pictures of the final product hanging in my hallway. I love how their favorites stand out agains the red and pink fairies. 

To make the banner:

Print off the banner on thick card stock, cut and laminate. Punch two holes at the top to string your ribbon through. This took an entire 6 yard ribbon spool. To help with stringing the letters, add some tick packaging tape around the end and form a point. This will help keep the ribbon from fraying. 

You can grab this banner and all the materials for free by clicking on the image below: