Sometimes, for a teacher like myself, it is overwhelming and difficult to plan classroom parties. A teacher can have the best room parents ever and still feel nervous about class parties. This is how I feel before Halloween and Winter Holiday parties. Halloween is creepy and scary. The party for the kids should be trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. I've never really understood the need for a party at school.
Next up- the Christmas Party. Not politically correct, materialistic, commercialism, and capitalism at its best. My class didn't have one this year. We went ice skating instead and I got a few parent e-mails and phone calls questioning the lack of a "Holiday Party." Especially taboo with a classroom holiday party any kind of gift exchange. I remember a simple ornament exchange at my previous school that went horribly wrong.
All of this opinion leads me to my next opinion, my favorite party of the year- Valentine's Day! I love having kids bring in Valentine's stickers, and white paper bags to decorate their mailboxes. For about an hour this is all they want to do. I think it brings them back to their K-3 days. Today I watched 6th grade boys politely argue over stickers, then intricately decorate their mailbox bag. The next hour is passing out Valentine's four students at a time. The front of my classroom today was a mile high and a foot deep with beautiful homemade and store bought Valentine's. The side counter of the classroom was full of 2-liter bottles of the best varietal of soda the mind can imagine, along with an assortment of cheese plates, crackers, vegetables and dips. As each student passed out their Valentine's they would tell their classmates (maybe even a little nervously) "Happy Valentine's Day," drop their Valentine in the mailbox bag, and move on to the next person. After all of the Valentine's are passed out, they spend the next hour reading, analyzing, sharing, laughing, and enjoying their mail. We had Fun Dip, Pixie Sticks, Twix, Skittles, Kit Kat, 3 Musketeers, Nerds, Sweet Tarts, Conversation Hearts, Hershey's Kisses, Mr. Goodbar, Snickers, Milky Way, homemade brownies, Valentine's balloons, and homemade peppermint bark. I enjoyed, just as much as the class did, my turn to pass out to each of them, a box of Conversation Hearts. One year, we had Conversacion Corazones! That was a memorable year. Regardless of the year or the language of the Conversation Hearts, there is just something so endearing about kids passing out the same type of mail to each other so that everyone gets one and feels good about it. It's the giving and receiving that is lost during the Holiday season, that I think is captured in my class during our Valentine's Party.
Now, if you've been reading this blog carefully, you may think I had a three hour Valentine's Day party with my class today. Unfortunately, I didn't have three hours, but it could have lasted that long if I didn't have to teach math, language arts and an enrichment class. I will end this blog with the same sentence that I ended my Friday e-mail to parents with, "Sometimes I wish every day was Valentine's Day!"
