Valentine's Day Blog Hop 2015 - Valentine Writing Activities

I love that I've teamed up with the wonderful gals at Faulkner's Fast Five, The Language Arts Classroom and The Literary Maven for another Secondary Blog Hop! This month's theme is "Feeling the Love" in honour of Valentine's Day.

What I LOVE about teaching...
I love that each day is different and that I know I'm guaranteed a good laugh with each of my classes.  I also love seeing the "light bulb go on"... I love seeing a student suddenly realize that poetry isn't really that bad after all... I love it when former students come to find me in the school to say hello... and I love it when students see their hard work and perseverance pay off. 

Valentine's Day Resource I LOVE...
I have a series of resources called "Interview With A __________" and the one I created for Valentine's Day is one of my favourites.  Interview With Cupid asks students to pretend they have the opportunity to interview Cupid - what would they ask? What questions would they have for Cupid?  Students must create questions and then make up the answers to complete a Cupid Biography.  The things my students come up with are always hilarious and love reading their work when they're done.
 

Funny Valentine's Day Gift
On old boyfriend of mine once sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers to me at school.  I was thrilled... and proudly put them in a vase on my desk.  I had no idea that those dang flowers would result in a student bursting into tears upon entering my classroom.  She walked in and said something along the lines of "Are those flowers yours? Are they for Valentine's Day?"  When I sweetly explained that they were from my boyfriend, she threw herself down at her desk, burst into tears and wailed "I HATE Valentine's Day and I HATE boys."  I managed to calm her down and quickly put the flowers in my office... hopefully out of her sight and out of her mind.  Aahh... the ups and downs of teen romance.

Something I'd LOVE to do??  
Do I only get to pick one thing? This is too hard... my list is really long:  Travel the South Pacific, do an African safari, adventure through South America... learn to cook better, drink less Coca-Cola, workout more often... I feel like I'm listing my failed New Year's resolutions... 

A Book I've Loved Reading Recently
I'm cheating again... I have two.
The Good Girl by Mary Kubika - If you loved Gone Girl, I think you'll also love The Good Girl. A great story - kept me guessing and on my toes.

The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu - A fantastic young adult novel that focuses on a girl called Alice and the impact that one rumour had on her high school life.  A hard hitting andd realistic look at high school bullying.

Happy Valentine's Day!

~ Addie

An InLinkz Link-up

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Valentine's Day Book Review Activity

Happy to be linking up with Laura Candler at Corkboard Connections for Februrary Freebies - be sure to check out the other great bloggers who have linked up!

My students love to share book titles with each other and I'm always amazed at how much they inspire each other to read.  All it takes sometimes is for one student to get excited about a book and before I know it, the entire class is desperate for a copy.  

In the last few years I've started developing seasonal book review templates and posting them in the classroom every few months.  In honor of Valentine's Day I've created a heart shaped template for students to write a "Short and Sweet" book review.  The emphasis is on having fun and writing a book review with their classmates as their audience.  I ask students to share their reviews with each other in small groups and then I post their reviews on a bulletin board in my class.  I will also do this in conjunction to a trip to the library so that students have the opportunity to sign out a book they may have just heard about through a review.

Click the image below to grab a free copy of the templates (one is lined and the other is unlined). No color printer required!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Check out last year's Valentine's Day Freebie Blog Post HERE.

Addie

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Valentine's Day Freebie

Well... love it or hate, Valentine's Day is just around the corner.  Strange things happen in a middle-school on Valentine's Day.... and it seems that at some point in the day I find someone in tears. (Usually a girl... upset with a boy, who has quite likely forgotten or didn't understand that he should have done something to mark the occasion.)  Ah.... young love!!

Here's a Valentine's Day Freebie to start off the Valentine's Day Season.  A fun writing prompt, poetry starter, art project or just as classroom decor!  Click the image below to download a FREE copy!   

The FREE download includes a color version, a black/white version, lesson ideas and Valentine themed writing paper.

Ask students to write a haiku using just the pink words as inspiration, or start their story with a red word, identify the parts of speech for the black words, include a word in each color in their first sentence...  I've even asked students to create their own subway art with Valentine words that are important to them.

Have fun!

Happy Valentine's Day!

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