Happy Valentine's Day!

We had an exciting Valentine's Day in our 4K classroom today!  After sign-in time, we read a special valentine story about a shark named Chomp.  He had just moved to a new part of the ocean and had no friends.  Chomp thought that Valentine's Day would be a great day to make new friends.  He kept approaching different ocean animals to give them hugs, kisses, and sing them poems, but they all were afraid of him.  Chomp felt very sad.  Ask your child if Chomp was able to make some new friends at the end of the story!  This story led to discussion about how to make friends.  We talked about ways we could make friends with others at school.

For our project today, we made special valentines for our families.  To keep with our ocean story, we got out the watercolor paints to make an ocean scene on paper.  Some children got very detailed and added the sandy bottom, seaweed, and even other fish.  Then we cut out hearts to make a heart fish to glue in our ocean.

By that time, we had so much energy from the excitement of Valentine's Day that we just needed to have some free play time.

We had our special valentine treats.  Decorating the cookies and drinking root beer floats was a memorable experience and many children stated that "This is the best Valentine's Day EVER!!!!"

Of course, we had to open up all of our valentine cards!  Every child found a place in the classroom to sit and look at their cards.  It was so sweet hearing everybody say "thank you" to each other for the wonderful cards and treats!  There were also many hugs exchanged.

In the afternoon session, a child had some "magic capsules" that we put into water.  We had to use patience and wait for awhile.  It was neat watching what happened!  The children predicted that the capsules would make the water change color, but what actually happened was that they opened up and became a bug or flower sponge!  The children were excited to take their sponges home!

We had planned to do some special valentine games, but just were not able to get around to it today!  With all the snow falling, the children were especially excited to play in the snow and try to build a snowman.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!