Stick 'Em Up!! (or into the envelope...)

Every Friday, in our (yes, our because it's me and my co-teacher's) classroom we have FUN FRIDAY. What exactly is Fun Friday? Well, it's exactly what the name suggests. We devote a period of instruction on Fridays to something different such as arts and crafts and other things we don't normally get to do during the week. Our children REALLY look forward to this time on Friday and me and my co-teacher are constantly looking for activities to do with our students. Anyways, I will share my favorite Fun Friday activity so far this year....

It all started around Valentine's day, with my co-teacher talking about the abundant amount of post its we have in our classroom. Post its are part of the 3rd grade supply list. However, over the years my co-teacher has collected a whole box of them which was sitting on top of our closet collecting dust. This is when I started to think about an activity that would incorporate post its and be worth while for our students.

We decided to have a week of "SAY SOMETHING NICE TO YOUR CLASSMATES, TEACHERS, & SNOWBALL, ON A POST IT AND STICK EM' INTO THEIR ENVELOPES." The whole idea was to write nice sayings, compliments, or notes to one another everyday for an entire week. In order to do this, we first had to create and decorate our mailboxes AKA white envelopes.

We spent a period decorating and individualizing our envelopes and designated a spot in the back of the room to hang up our mailboxes. It was really adorable how each child was able to put a little bit of him/herself on to the envelope (see below).


Now the waiting game began as we spent an entire week writing post its to one another. We allowed the students to write post its if they finished their classwork early and also at the end of the day. My co-teacher and I also got a chance to write a note to each and everyone of our twenty-five students. Each day, every child's envelope began to fill up. However, we did notice that some students were not getting as many post it notes as others so by Wednesday for homework, we assigned each student to write a note to someone they don't know very well or haven't written a note to yet. This solved the problem and by Friday, each student had collected a minimum of 6-7 notes! On the last day which was Friday, we all took our envelopes off the wall and read through our notes. Even as a teacher, I felt a rush of excitement and joy as I read through each and every one of their SWEET little notes.

In order to help preserve our notes, we gave each student a piece of red construction paper. We glued down our envelopes and post its and made a collage. Here are the finished products! We are happy to say that along with the students we thoroughly enjoyed this activity and some of the notes made me want to tear. It just showed me how much our students have grown and matured with one another and how genuine they are!


P.S. Snowball had an envelope too and needless to say, Ms. Popular Bunny Rabbit received the most notes.... her envelope almost fell off the wall... hahaha.