Valentine's Day Themed Party

This year I was on the committee for the PTA Board Luncheon. We decided to have it on February 13th so that we could have a Valentine's Day theme for the party. I was so excited to send out the invitations and create all of the decorations. I truly love party planning and DIY decorations. I have had much success with Paperless Post for online invitations. They are just beautiful. You can select your invitation from a number of options. The one that I chose happened to be free, but they all are not. Once you have chosen an invitation, you can chose an envelope, liner, and stamp. You can track who has been sent an invitation, if they opened it or not, and who is coming to your party, on a very simple to use tracking page.

I really wanted the invitation to reflect the Valentine's Day theme, but be sophisticated enough for an adult luncheon. I think that it turned out very well, and I received many thank you response from the PTA board members.

As the board members opened the link to the card, they were taken to an image of the envelope with the heart stamp. Special stamps cost money, but they are worth the small price to start the invitation off right. The envelope then flips over and opens to reveal the heart liner. The liner and stamp are the only two real Valentine's Day themed items. I did chose the festive Carnaby in pink invitation to keep the theme going, but it did not scream Valentine's Day. If you are planning a party and want to be environmentally friendly without sacrificing style Paperless Post is the way to go. I hope you enjoy exploring Paperless Post! They also have a wonderful option for print invitations. I sent out an invitation for my son's Baptism. I wanted a copy of the invitation, so I just hit the "order this card design in paper" button, and one was sent to my house for his baby book. 

I also love making decorations. I discovered this love last year in September when I had to decorate for my son's birthday party with a $200 dollar budget. For this luncheon, I immediately went on Pinterest and started to pin fun ideas. My board is a small, but I still had fun pinning! If you would like to view it, I have set up a link here. I went with the hot air balloon theme.

I started by weaving the baskets. To do this, you need two different colors of brown paper. One of the papers, you will fold in half and cut slits about one inch apart by starting at the fold and cutting up. You then need to cut the other paper into one inch strips. Unfold the first paper and weave the strips in an under-over pattern until you have moved from one end to the other. Next, very carefully fold and cut a half-basket looking shape. When you unfold the basket will be symmetrical. Then, glue the edges down so that the basket does not unravel. For the hearts, a die cut machine is desirable, but not necessary. I did use a die cut, so my hearts are all symmetrical and equal. Once I had all of my pieces, I just started placing hearts to looks like a large balloon. I did two boards this way. Beautiful!

I forgot to take pictures of the room. I know many board member have shots, so I am going to try to chase them down. I hope that this inspires you to think creatively and have fun with any party that you might be throwing!

Valentine's Day Mailboxes and Post Office

It has been some time since I had a moment to sit down and write a blog entry. As I work this morning at 4:00 am unable to get back to sleep, I thought it the perfect time to reflect on the weeks past. Sometimes it seems almost impossible to incorporate the projects that I did before the Common Core Standards, but we did manage to do a design challenge for Valentine's Day. I spruced it up, and it can be found at Valentine's Day Mailbox Challenge.

I started by giving the PPT presentation on what I expected from my students mailbox designs. We looked at different types of mailboxes and discussed characteristics. I threw in some very funny ones that took on the features of animals and superheros to inspire them to think big.

Then, we visited our STEM lab and got to work designing. They turned out excellent.

I placed them in my cubbies so that they were out of the way, but easy to access.

To take it even further, we mailed our valentines in a post office activity. Each students takes a role as a worker at the post office or a mailer of valentines. They run through their roles of stamping, sorting, mailing, and distributing mail until they are replaced. The process is very smooth and all students get to do all jobs. I am working on attaching this part of the project to my TpT Mailbox Challenge. The students really loved it. Everyday they would ask me, "Are we doing post office today?" I was very exciting to have them act so enthusiastic toward the game that turns out to match with our social studies unit on "Goods and Services". Students learned how things can be exchanged for money specifically buying stamps. They are learned the specialized work that people do in the area of mail and banking.

Students are lender money by the bank so that they can purchase their stamps to mail their letters.

Alphabetical sorter for mail

I made my very own mailbox using two boxes stacked onto of each other and covering them with blue paper. I took screen shots of the post office sign. 

Students buy stamps.

The mailman collected mail from the sorting bins.

One of my students putting letters in the mailboxes.

One of my student mailing letters.

Someone gets a loan for stamps for their valentine, and another student lends out money and uses a checkbook to keep track. 

On Valentine's Day, the students took their mailboxes to their desk and read all of their mail. There were some mistakes of mail not making it to the right mailbox, but for the most part, it was a great success.