Good Old Fashioned Cut and Paste

My all time favorite valentine candy has to be conversation hearts. 

 Not the chalky ones that have been sitting in the box all year and leave a film on the roof of your mouth.  The softer style with a little edge of creaminess and a note of postage stamp flavoring; preferably the larger sized hearts. Yum, I really do enjoy them and buy them on clearance after February 14th to do "projects" with. 

By that I mean, envisioning hot gluing them to a cute picture frame or shellacking them on top of some little treasure box. In actuality, consuming them  all in 

mass, one night and living to regret it. 

Inspired by the vocabulary on my favorite candy, I set out with my 24 students to make our own set of conversations hearts. First we brain stormed a list of kindness words. I wrote them on chart paper for later reference. Then we practiced folding the paper in half, finding the spine side and making the top part of a two on the paper.  

After a good handful cut the wrong side and ended up with two pieces looking nothing like a heart, the majority started to catch on.  Better yet, those that were struggling were helped by their classmates. 

Hooray… kindness in action!  

I love it when I see that happen naturally.

 Then, I let them loose on a stack of magazines. Despite the fact that only two kids got very distracted by an old copy of National Geographic (you know my favorite candy, now here is my favorite magazine), half an hour later, all 24 students had three hearts to share.

Bummer, "K" you almost made it.  Though you do look quite cute!

This hug is like that sideways/backward hug we teacher get from behind and we don't know which student is giving it until we turn around. 

Hey. . . kind of looks like someone found the word friend and just cut it apart.

Clever, albeit only loosely following the directions. 

Very sneaky and smart little kindergartners I have this year!



Grab some paper, and magazines, and whip up an utterly delicious literacy activity.