I'm old-fashioned and I insist that my daughter and I make her Valentine's for her class. It gets harder every year as the class size grows and grows. This year we have to make 34 Valentines! (I could make this post a rant about the state of education in the U.S., but let's just talk about happier things right now and I'll show you what we have on the Valentine production line this year.)
My daughter's class has 23 boys and only 11 girls, so I needed to find an idea that was cute but would also please all those boys. I hate to give out candy almost as much as I hate to get it, so I usually do paper valentines and/or sew up some sort of little toy. My daughter and I brainstormed and decided to make alien valentines. We sewed up some quick alien puppets from felt and my daughter drew her Valentine. After she was done with her drawing, I scanned it and printed out the Valentines. If you have never scanned and printed your child's artwork, I highly suggest you do. My daughter felt incredibly important and was amazed that I could produce prints of her work.
I also mananged to sneak in some math. My daughter is currently learning how to add and subtract double digit numbers. With a class as big as hers it was easy to run her through some math problems. As we did batches, I would stop every so often and ask her how many more Valentines we needed. I think it was great way to show her how she will apply math in her life.
Want to see some of our previous year's valentines?
Tea Cup Valentine Gift for Teachers
So how about you? Do you make or buy your Valentines?
