My Little Valentines

Remember passing out valentines in elementary school?  Either you made them, or bought the Looney Toon-or-Barbie or-whatever-was-popular-themed cards and passed them out to everyone in your class?  And remember decorating your paper bag with pride, the tiny post office that would receive all your glorious goodies?

This was my day today.

How fun it was to cut out little pieces of construction paper and address them to all my students, including a little note of what I love about each of them (done during yesterday’s snow day!).  The excitement was almost unbearable all day - while the unopened valentines sat on top of the bookshelf, and my heart-shaped cake sat in its box while we had to create polygons during math and work on our nonfiction-reading skills during reading.  Of course everyone just wanted to get to the valentines - even us teachers.  Finally, at 2:00, the main event began, and everyone ran around the room in a furry to pass out their cards and candy and chocolate, the ELL kids stopping me often to ask where their classmates sat, because they were still not familiar with their names.  I got back to my seat the the front of the table, and while eating my pink-frosted cupcake, opened my bag of valentines, and marveled at the artistic talent and thought that went into these cards (I even got a heart full of Russell Stovers - score!).

When I was this age, I seem to remember the passing out of valentines heavily laden with the romantic overtones that only a 4th grader could dream up - and it was completely stressful.  I was so impressed at how my teacher handled this event today in a year where these students are for sure still kids, but on the verge of being something a bit more: she wrote home that the rule was the students had to bring valentines for everyone, and made the theme be about friendship.  I loved that.  And it worked so well.

E. and I are celebrating V-day like we always do - by doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.  Boycotting both the over-consumerist and overly-heterosexist nature of it all, with a dash of disdain for Hallmark essentially telling us exactly when to be romantic, we always decide to stick to our wedding anniversary as an extra-special occasion to celebrate US.  We do just fine without Hallmark and chocolate and jewlery stores, thank you very much.

But I dare say the excitement of celebrating V-day in 4th grade style completely made my day in a way I had no idea it would.  The surprises and  joys of working with kids never ceases to amaze me.

Hope yours was just as wonderful.