The Primary Punchbowl: Valentine's Day

Hi friends! Sarah from Mrs. B's First Grade here! I am here today to talk to you about one of my favorite Valentine's Day books and give you some freebies for a follow up activity!

I am a HUGE fan of finding quality literature to both read and teach with in my classroom. Hugs from Pearl by Paul Schmid is a perfect book to read during this time of year...and really any other time! In the book Pearl, a porcupine, loves to give hugs. Her friends loved to receive hugs from her, but they hurt a little. Her teacher kept a box of band-aids handy to help with this. So, Pearl decided to do something about it. She tried a few things but finally created a rose dress out of a pillowcase. It worked as the perfect protector for her friends!

Reading this book to your class can be the starting point for some great discussions. Some talking points include:

What was Pearl's problem?
What solutions to solve her problem did Pearl come up with?
Would you have thought of any other solutions for Pearl?
What kind of friends did Pearl have? Were they kind?

One of the most obvious talking points is the question if you would hug Pearl or not. When I read this book to my class, we took this question a little further!

First, I had my students fill out the sheet below. It got them thinking about if they would hug Pearl and why or why not. Just click the picture to download it!

Click to download!

After my students finished thinking about whether or not they would hug Pearl, we made a class graph using the data. The graph was a perfect talking point to discuss the book but also to get in some key math vocabulary including more than, less than, most, least, equal, and in all. To grab my headings to create your own chart, just click below to download!

Click to download!

Have you read this book to your class? I would love to hear about activities you have done with it!

Happy Valentine's week, friends! It's Elisabeth from Literacy and Lattes here to share a some of the Valentine's fun that will be happening in my classroom this week. You're probably already planning on sorting candy hearts, right? Keep the fun going with these little science labs.

You'll need candy hearts, 4 cups, vinegar, salt, baking soda, water and a spoon for mixing.

Fill one cup with water and a tablespoon-ish of salt. One with water and about a tablespoon of vinegar and another with water and tablespoon of baking soda. The fourth cup is filled with only water.

Add a candy heart to each of the cups. We decided to make sure we used the same color in each for the "most accurate" results. Little scientists are very serious about making sure their research is carried out appropriately! ;) Don't forget to write your hypothesis and predict what will happen to each of the hearts.

Let your hearts soak for about 15 - 20 minutes and observe what happens.

Right away you can see some good bubble action as the air makes it's way out of the candy.

While we wait, we wanted to answer the age old question: Do the different colors of candy hearts actually taste different?

We did a very scientific blind taste test. Cover your eyes and hold out your hand so your partner can give you a candy heart. Eat it and guess the color. Then you partner confirms the actual color. You can find this taste test freebie here.

Revisit your hearts and document your results.

I actually got different results using two different brands of candy hearts, which was surprising.

With Necco Sweathearts pictured here, all four hearts basically dissolved and turned the water blue. In the salt water cup, you could see little pieces of the red words floating at the top of the water, along with the little cluster of dissolved sugar.