Love is in the Air

As Valentine's day quickly approaches how many of you feel a bit of anxiety?  As I think of this holiday I think of a busy classroom filled with hyper bodies! Eekk... However, what about turning this day into an opportunity to feed our classroom rapport instead of feeding our cavities? 

Building Classroom Rapport on Valentine's Day

Last year I saw a magnificent idea as I was scrolling on Instagram. A teacher had written on her white board, "What do you love most about our class?" and then allowed all of her students to answer that question. The responses were beautiful! 

So I decided to try this activity last year on Valentine's day. My students' responses made me cheese from ear to ear while filling up my heart with so much love and content. As educators we work tirelessly when we're not on. At times it's hard to notice if our students appreciate all of those off-scene hours. Our students might not be giving the effort we are asking for, not meeting the goals we set for them or may not be participating as much as we'd like them to. But this quick and easy activity made me realize that they do in fact appreciate the little things and the off-scene work. 

Some of their responses were:

"The fact that you encourage us to try our best when trying new things"

"What I love about this class is how creative it is"

"I love that you always think about us" 

"How much Miss. Vargas focuses on what we need"

"What I love is that you never yell at us"

And these are just a few of the beautiful responses I read. At the end of that year's Valentine's Day I stayed after school reading their responses, remembering how amazing these little humans are! They might not show it all of the time but they truly to appreciate what we do for them. 

This activity fills my heart with so much joy and it did the same for my students. The next day I allowed all of my students to go up and read their responses. It created a moment of  reminiscing and a class discussion on how much we love our classroom! This also gave me feedback on what to continue doing in my classroom and what was not really standing out for my students. 

So I challenge you in the midst of Valentine's Day to try this activity with your classes. Fair warning: tears and joy might be involved. 

If you try this activity I would love to hear how it went in your classroom! 

Learning & Growing, 

Nancy Vargas