Valentine gifts: A Special Pencil.

When school supplies are on super sale during August, I buy packs of pencils for about a dollar.

I save them to decorate and pass out to my students during special times of the year.

You can make a class set of hearts and attach one to the end of a pencil, with a thick glue dot, in about 20 minutes.

Print a copy of the little card that I’ve designed to go with them.  Cut 2 slits and insert the pencil and you’re set!

What a nice Valentine surprise left on their desk.

Valentine Gifts: A Bouquet of Love

As I was fooling around making the hearts, it occurred to me that they would be cute flowers if I stuck them to the top of a green Popsicle stick.

I LOVE how more ideas pop into my head as I’m “playing.”

Students can make 1, 2, or even 3 flowers for their Dixie cup vase. I folded a green strip in half and then in half again and cut the smaller strips, to make leaves.

You might want to make these strips skinnier so they look a bit different and fit on the Popsicle stick better. I used glue dots to adhere everything to the stick.

I looked for Dixie cups that were a solid color, or had a nice pattern that would look like a vase.

Tip the cup upside down; using a knife, make as many slits as you need and then insert the assembled heart flowers.

Adjust the height ‘til you have an appealing arrangement. I’ve also made a little card students can include with their bouquet. Click on the link to view/download the Heart Activities.

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“Finish each day and be done with it.  You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can.  Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson