Valentine's Day at School - Page 2

[Hatteras Gal]

Originally Posted by Alyantavid

It seems to be. I'm one of the few who doesn't attach candy to the cards. My oldest son is 6 and in first grade and wrote out his own cards.

This is the same for me, except I have a dd. Didn't send any candy but she got a lot of candy and they also had an ice cream sundae party in her class (which was a lot of fun and I contributed to the sugar level by making frosted, decorated heart shaped cookies). Her Valentines came with tattoos but we didn't include any of them. I'm saving them for party favors for her birthday party next weekend.

Dd2 is in preschool and they handed out Valentines as well. Some of them had candy, some had pencils or tattoos.

[mommy68]

Originally Posted by Evan&Anna's_Mom

That is definitely the norm around here.

here too. At my child's old school they had the children decorate a shoe box or another type of box to hold their goodies. My DD was in kindergarten last year and they had a party on V-day in class and some kids brought goody bags and others just brought valentines and a piece of candy or stickers or a tattoo. My DD also did it for two years in preschool. In fact, it's this way for a lot of holidays but Christmas and V-day are the most common.

[Purple*Lotus]

Yes, that was the norm for my preschool kid's. We send a note home about it because we have peanut allergies in our room as well as some other allergies. One student with allergies made treat bags with small trinkets, no candy. We also checked their boxes ahead of time and removed any candy that we knew they could not have. My kids are smart about their allergies, but it is still too risky. We have lists from the parents that details what candy they can and can not have, so it was easy. We also had extra treats for them in case a lot of their classmates brought candy they could not eat. So they would not feel left out.

Those who did not send candy sent some sort of goody, either a pencil or stickers, etc. All of the kids brought something in addition to a valentine.

[beanma]

I'm so glad we're not in the public schools around here this time of year. (Tuition time, I'm not so glad.) I think the candy overload is very common here, but dd1 goes to a private independent crunchy school. She's in a 1st/2nd grade mixed age class. I think she got 1 commercial valentine (pokemon) and oe "extra" – a pencil. The rest of the cards were all homemade. DD2's preschool had a vaentine's brunch like a PPs and they also made cards during class tie. I love that. Dd1's b-day is the 12th so valentine's gets short shrift around here. I don't want to do any more than I have to for it!

[Altair]

I'm a teacher-- I teach K this year but have taught up to 5th other years.

In my K class about half of the kids bring in something from home, either homemade cards or cards/candy or pencils or something of the sort. So that no one feels left out, we let each kid make a mailbox and then we pin them to the walls all around the room. All week, we work on making handmade cards for every kid. So every student gets a list of every kids name and they check them off as they make them-- the kids names are Word Wall Words in our classroom so they love writing out and recognizing their friends names. Also, this week we add "to" and "from" to the word wall so they can write that on the cards. On V-day (or this year, Friday) they get all the cards they made plus anything they brought from home and they deliver them to everyone's mailbox around the room-- fun because they love finding the boxes and recognizing names. Kids don't feel left out who didn't bring in anything else.

When I taught upper grades, my favorite thing to do was print out valentines for every kid from every kid, then on the valentine they were required to say one nice thing to every person on the card. If they weren't friends with that person, could be as simple as "you are good in math." I stressed how everyone in our room is good at different things and has different talents and personality traits-- and that if you were stuck trying to think of something for someone, watch them for a few days to see something that makes them stand out. Then after we deliver the cards we glue down all the things people said about us into handmade notebooks. The kids absolutely TREASURED these, and it opened up so many great lines of communication, esp for kids who feel as though no one notices them. Weeks later I'd still see them pulling out the books and smiling re-reading them.

[spottiew]

Originally Posted by BCFD

My kids attend a private Montessori school and I was shocked to see how many parents attach candy to the cards or gave candy bags. Most of the cards were character themed cards, too. I had both of my kids sign their name to each card (I wrote their classmate's name or we would have spent 10 hours instead of 2 ) We opted for generic holograph dinosaur and nature cards. Some parents even gave each child a small plastic lunchbox filled with candy and birthday. We gave each of the teacher's and assistants beautiful tulips and candy to share in the kitchen. I'm thinking about giving each child a tulip bulb next year and a small pot. Wish I would have thought about that sooner.

we are also montessori, we had a handmade card exchange. so each kid only made and received one, not 25 or 50.

[jen in co]

My DDs 1st grade class sounds similar, but my son's preschool doesn't celebrate Holidays generally. They do have stuff to make valentines available in the crafts and writing centers, but they specifically ask us not to bring in valentines for classmates.

[ginger_rodgers]

It's been a freaking sugarfest in my kid's school since Halloween. There's no real effort at controlling the madness and I'd say about 1/4 the kids are overweight. I'm considering getting the doctor to write up a medical restriction for dd on sugary stuff to hand the school.