Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Compliment Valentines, reactions

So, the compliment valentines were a hit! Not only did the kids enjoy doing them (and practiced their vocabulary in the process!), but I was so touched by the things they wrote about one another. Really sweet!

I did decide to change how each kid got the names of the kids they were to write to. I picked the names ahead of time out of a hat, (and strategically assigned a few kids to others in the class.) We have some kids who just absolutely don't get along, and it seemed to make for a more pleasant experience if I monitored the choices a bit. In the end, I am glad I did it this way. No groans when the kids saw their list of names....

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Compliment Valentines

I was trying to come up with a creative way to do Valentine's that included everyone in the class and worked to build community amongst my students. My fourth graders worked on learning adjectives to describe themselves earlier this year, so I came up with the idea of 'Compliment Valentines'. Each student picks three names out of a hat, then writes a 'compliment valentine' for that student. So, for example, Johnny picks Felicia's name and could write "You are kind." or "You are very creative." or another compliment using the vocabulary we have learnt previously in the year. Every student will end up receiving three compliments- some from friends and some from classmates they don't know well. It's a fun way to say something nice about someone else and use the target language at the same time!