It was snowy, sugar was heavily involved, the schedule is off, and a party was planned; would the students be completely crazy? In my class, they weren't too bad. I was in charge of the activities for the day, and I tried to keep it structured. We were sitting in our morning meeting circle when a slow trickle of students from the other class came and dumped valentines on my and my chair. The other class of 4th graders exchanged their treats right away in the morning and wanted to give me a treat since I teach them science. It was sweet of them to think of me, but I got a little annoyed because they were very disruptive. One of my students commented, "Miss Heintz, you hit the jackpot!"
After our morning meeting, I read a few chapters from The Tale of Despereaux and they decorated bags to put their valentines in. Then we made valentines for the nursing home residents. Following that, we went into our Daily Five rotation. I met with a few students about their plot and character worksheets for the adventure stories we're writing. A male student was explaining some of his characters to me and I was a bit confused when I read the box titled, "Character's Problems." In that box, he'd written, "has good emotions and shares his feelings." I asked him, "Are those really problems?" When I was reading aloud what he'd written the student was turning more and more red. His character's name used to be his own name because he wanted to be in his own story, but then I saw he changed his first name to be The Hulk. But it was still him. Apparently he must think he's good at sharing his feelings, but it's a weakness?
This same student went a little crazy when we passed out our candy. After lunch and PE, I had the students come into the room, open their decorated bags on their desks, grab their treat from the back, and sit quietly until everyone was ready. We only had a half an hour before going to a short play put on by some local college students. When everyone was ready, I shouted "go" and they took off! It was absolute chaos, but I was okay with that; I figured it was bound to happen at some point in the day. Mrs. J said they could eat whatever candy they wanted (if it were up to me, I would've said they could eat only two or three pieces). Fun dip was the candy choice of the day; I think I got about seven of them out of a class of nineteen. The student I mentioned earlier decided he was going to pour the sugar from six packages into his mouth. Then he came up to me, "Miss Heintz, look at my tongue!" It was bright green, like the color of a leaf. Since we had been studying the body, I told him it looked like a gall bladder and told him to get a drink; maybe it would water down some of the sugar. Yuck! Mrs. J made the comment they should use moderation and make sure they don't eat themselves sick. When we went to the play, she told them, "I know you haven't eaten enough candy to have a sugar rush, so that idea can go right out the window. You need to be listening quietly and be a good audience for them." We had no behavior problems at all. It was amazing!
After the play, I gave them my valentine treat: M&Ms for doing some geometry. I met with individual pods to show them how to make crystal hearts with pipe cleaners, water, and sugar (or salt). They're currently sitting on shelves all over the classroom, waiting for evaporation to do its job. I finished with the last pod at 3:00 right on the dot and we calmly got ready to go home. One of my students stopped packing up her locker to give me a Valentine's Day hug (Mrs. J got one too). What a great day!
When I got back to school, I found two cards in my mailbox, one from Grandma and Grandpa, and the other from my parents. The best part was that my dad had sent the card (I recognized his handwriting). That one card made my whole day! I couldn't stop smiling. Later on, I went back to my room and found a rose in front of my room with a fancy homemade card saying, "you and me are soul mates, happy Valentine's Day! Love, Your Secret Admirer." My sister wrote on my whiteboard, "Congratulations on your elopement. When you get back, you should tell me who you married. PS- the kiss is from me." She'd left a chocolate kiss in front of my door. Someone else left another fun dip taped to my door. Mysterious. So my Valentine's Day was a pretty good day after all.
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