Valentine’s
Day in my classroom was wild when I taught second grade. Two weeks before the special day, my students
would decorate white bakery bags with cut out hearts. I’d write their names on
the bags with a Sharpie. The bags sat on the top of a bookcase in the classroom
in anticipation of the BIG day.
If
I counted the times that those bags were looked at by my students each year, it
would be over a thousand.
And
then there was valentine art made by them that was on the bulletin board and
elsewhere. Red dominated the room and that was a good thing. When Valentine’s
Day arrived [if it hadn’t snowed which it did far too many times and the party
was held later,] concentration was extremely hard on the students’ part. All
they could think of was the afternoon party and getting their valentine bags!
After
lunch on that day, I would let each row of students go the valentine bags and
put their valentines in each bag. This process seemed endless for some students
hadn’t written names on the envelopes of their cards or couldn’t find others.
But it happened and the bags were full and just waiting to be opened.
With
the help of wonderful homeroom mothers that brought treats and drinks, the
party would eventually start. You could feel the excitement in the air as the
mothers gave each child the goodies. Yes, the students wanted them but even
more they wanted the valentine bags. The
anticipation was almost equal to Christmas for that’s how excited they were.
I
would call on several students at a time to retrieve their bags and the process
didn’t take long at all. You could not only see but hear the ripping open of
envelopes and hear giggles or an “Ah” if someone received a valentine that had
LOVE on it.
The
afternoon and the party seemed to whiz by but the looks on my students’ faces
were unforgettable, especially if they had received a LOVE valentine. Boys
would look at girls and girls would stare at boys. About ten minutes before the
bell would ring, everyone shared in cleaning up the room with the homeroom
mothers helping as well. But there wasn’t a single valentine left anywhere—not
on a desk or on the floor. They had been crammed into those bakery bags as if
they were some precious and valuable things.
And
come to think of it, that’s exactly what they were to my second graders:
Precious and valuable. I remember all
too well how I felt as a kid on Valentine’s Day in my own classroom: I felt the
same excitement and hope of getting a valentine that had LOVE on it. It sent chills down my spine but in a good
way.
Yes,
Valentine’s Day in my second grade classroom was wild—wild in that the
excitement filled the air from the morning bell to the closing one. And it was wonderful. I hope you hang onto
your childhood memories of it for it was magical.
Sherry
Hill
Copyright © 2016
Sherry Hill
All Rights Reserved
