Happy Belated Valentine's Day! With all of the snow and cold temperatures in the Northeast this year, Valentine's Day came by quickly; so quickly in fact that I was not able to post prior to the holiday! It worked out for the best, however, because now I am able to have pictures of the projects that were created!
Since this is my first year in second grade, I wanted to do something different to celebrate this February tradition in a more original manner. Since I am able to stay with the same group of students the entire day, I feel that I have more time available to work on projects. Also, this year I want to infuse creativity into my students' lives more often so I figured Valentine's Day was the perfect place to insert it!
A while back, I received an email from Michael's Arts and Crafts stores showing a kit that you could purchase to create a Valentine's Day mailbox. One of these kits happened to be an owl, which is my theme for the year. (Side note: Owls have great vision, intelligence, and power which make them a great animal to show respect to throughout the year). Immediately I went to Michael's to purchase this kit and saw that not only would it be too expensive to purchase one for everyone, but it already included the colors and size for each piece. If I were to have my students create this, all they would have to do is paste the pieces together which involved very little creativity.
(A snapshot taken from the Michael's advertisement on January 30th)
Instead, what I did was purchase the owl kit along with many other supplies from Michael's. These supplies included multi-colored and patterned scrapbook paper, plain construction paper, and thicker paper to make my own tracers. When I got home, I unwrapped the package and got to work duplicating all of the templates for my students to use and for the process to go smoothly.
Once I got to school, I was not sure how this project would turn out. Even though I was prepared with all of my supplies, I had not actually constructed the mailbox myself so I did not know the process that it would entail. I was so excited about the project, however, that my students took to it with gusto and their creativity blew me away. They carefully selected colors that went with one another; some decided to go with a Valentine's Day theme while others wanted to include colors that made them happy. Either way, the finished products were outstanding!
I truly enjoyed this project because the students were able to practice their cutting, pasting, and direction following skills while inserting creativity, choice, and their own ideas of what a "Valentine's Day owl" should look like. Students added expression in their owl by changing wing direction or eye size, included details such as fringe on the wings or a glisten on the pupil, or added an object such as Cupid's bow and arrow or a mustache.
Even though I was unsure of how the project would turn out or how long the procedure would actually take, it went by smoothly, flawlessly, and the enthusiasm of the students was unmatched. Taking the time to do this with my class was certainly worth it. Even though Valentine's Day has passed, take the time to inspire creativity in your classroom wherever you can.
Enjoy!
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