Love Letters - A Writing Unit

Love Letters are something that we have done with our first graders for years and decided to share it with the world. We start them in February, or whenever you start talking about Valentine's Day. We talk about what we love about each other in our classroom. It creates a great sense of community when children have to look for the positive traits in all of their classmates. After discussing the "How to's" of writing a friendly letter, we put it in a center with a class list and highlighter. Children have to choose a classmate from the list, highlight their name, then write them a letter telling them all the things they like (OR LOVE) about them. Then we put it in their classroom mailbox and they open it and take it home at the end of the day. You can also add some cute Valentine's Day stickers or smiley face stickers to use to seal the letters together. Watching the children beam with pride as they read their letters is PRICE.LESS! We keep it out long after Valentine's Day is over because it is such a success.

Click here to purchase Love Letters.

Things I Like - Book Extension

We just read Things I Like by Anthony Browne.  It's such a simple text and easy for first graders (and kindergartners) to relate to.  They love to tell you everything that they like!  We use this book as we introduce making lists.  They can make all kinds of lists like... "Things I like to do after school." Or, "Things I like to eat" or "Things I like to play".  And the list goes on and on.

We made a book extension to go along with this book!

Click here to get the book extension.