Valentine's Activity

Every year I try to figure out something new to do for the holidays with my kiddos, but every year Valentine's Day seems to be the one I get stuck on.  My kids have written Acrostic poems more times than I can count and the cards...let's just say I don't do them anymore.  I've gotten some inappropriate cards over the years and my kids overall just don't seem to care for the activity.

So, I searched Pinterest, Edmodo (my teacher groups), Teachers Pay Teachers, and several other of my favorite sites but really didn't come up with much.  That is, until I found an idea on Pinterest that got my wheels turning a bit.  So, I thought about it a bit and finally came up with this idea...a "stained glass" piece of Spanish artwork.

On Friday, my kids are going to make their own "stained glass" Valentines.  Because I know how my students can be, I decided not to allow them to cut their own wax paper or apply their own edging, so I spent a good portion of today making 90 "stained glass" sheets for them to work on. All I did was take my handy cutter from Michaels and cut squares out of the wax paper and then applied some cute washi tape onto the edges to frame it.  I got really lucky finding some black washi tape at Home Goods on clearance for $.50 each and several other colors including the red and white dot for $.99 at AC Moore on clearance as well.  I'm also planning on picking up more Sharpies since most of mine have gone missing this year (ugh).  I found these on Amazon which is the best price I've seen.

I can't wait to see how my students do with this little art project.  Want the instructions and graphics to use with your classes?  Check out my TPT store to purchase them for only $.99!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Last night I had my annual Parent/Teacher Conferences.  Overall, I'm very pleased with how they went.  I've been doing this for 13 years now, so some years are better than others.  This year was one of my better years.  I didn't have to deal with any angry parents (truth be told, I usually don't) and I was lucky enough to receive some heart warming compliments from the parents of some of my students.

I generally don't look forward to conferences because it's a very long day for me.  I'm usually up at 5:30 in the morning and then don't get home until close to 9 at night.  This year was a little different since we didn't have a typical day of school due to a delayed opening...which was nice.  And, of course, I had a normal, busy day of school and then my meetings at night.  

Since I teach high school, I do not normally see more than 20 parents and last night was no different. Typically the ones I do see are the ones who are on top of their kids and usually are the parents of the better behaved, the ones who I don't really need to see.  Of course that held true last night as well.  But, hey, I can't complain.  I get to praise those students to their parents, some hear it a lot, some don't.  

I wish more parents came out to conferences, but the reality is that they do not.  So, I'm left wondering, why do we still have conferences in this technological age where we post our grades online for parents to inspect {and sometimes argue} any time they want?