Spring Break

Spring Break, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. (with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

If you're on Spring Break, than you know what I'm feeling. And if you're not, I hope your time is coming.

Speaking of love (in a very round about way)....
We did Heart Maps for Valentine's Day.  Here's where I got the idea. 

I showed my kids these pictures and really tried to talk about how these kids obviously put things that were important to them on the heart map. They didn't put just every little thing. (I did get a little worried when I went back to this site and realized these were 4th graders. But then I said, "Whatever.")

I had my kids make a list of things that were important to them. Of course, I have those 3 or 4 that don't like to write anything - so their list was short. And then I had those kids whose list filled up one whole piece of notebook paper. 

Then we edited together the list - mostly spelling corrections. Next they had me cut out their heart map. I had them do all their writing and drawing on their Heart Map. Then I found an afternoon where we had time and most everybody was there, and we painted (if they wanted to). 

Last step, gluing their Heart Map to piece of construction paper. Some of them decorated that, too.

Here's some show and tell :)

After I stapled them up in the hallway, I had everyone walk slowly past and say "Ooh" and "Aah." They really did turn out quite nice. And an added bonus is they went up right before Parent Teacher Conferences - so a little hall decoration for our parents. :)