With Valentines Day creeping up, I wanted to share a couple things we did last year with my class. We will have to tweak it a bit to follow COVID guidelines but gist of it remains. I will be posting more pictures on the gallery on Montessori work that I create and other classroom décor I come up with as the month goes on.
Covid has changed the class budget tremendously, but we certainly don’t want our children feeling it. I still want to come up with fresh and fun ideas that will keep the children engaged in learning. That is my main goal in the classroom, but I also want to make the class fun so they can get excited about seeing all the new things I add.
I have two big glass windows in my class, which is very nice because it gives me space to decorate without making the classroom feeling cramped. I try to change this up every month, and allow the children to give me ideas or tell me which they like best. They seem to really enjoy being able to vote on how we keep THEIR classroom. I made those flowers out of tissue paper and just pasted them on the glass. I only had a couple red pieces of tissue paper but would have loved adding more red to it if I could (maybe after my target run!). I made one of these runners for Thanksgiving out of construction paper butttttt found this one at Target for $3!
Vowel Matching
We are learning our vowels this time of the year and although we have the fancy tracing letters which we still use, these catch their eye a bit more. I cut the big letters out with a little wave to make it seem more floral. Once they have learned to match the letters and learn the sounds, I will add an object with the initial sound as an extension.
Counting Flower Petals
Pretty simple and totally fun for the kids. They love the feel of the flower petals and they like the fun number design. Cut out some construction paper flowers and laminate for longer wear! I did the same with hearts so that we would have a couple choices of number work we could do. Depending on the age of your children, I would not add marbles to the work. When I had younger children I just used heart shaped stickers or
For the actual party we will be doing some freeze dance with a killer playlist I have been adding on to through the years and some bowling. Bowling is seriously my go to! I have never met a child who doesn’t enjoy the pins (or cups) fall to the ground! We added a table with paper all around so they could just scribble on it as well as a craft table where they made “love bug hats”. Some kids do get tired and we wanted an activity that will let them rest but still have fun.
Every year we come up with different things with what we have and things we could find. I am very big on community that is why most holidays or special events, I like to have the children have snack or lunch together. I put all the tables together and we eat together, they have learned to wait until all their friends are seated and ready to eat before they dig in. Below are some ideas of a couple of the tables I have done. I have posted more work and classroom ideas in the gallery if you want to take a look!!
Emmanuel Hope Children's House 