Pinterest and Oriental Trading Valentine's Day Ideas

I feel like I start every post with "Can you BELIEVE it's already (fill in with current date)?!" But for real... how is it almost Valentine's Day?

Disclaimer: This post contains sponsored content, affiliate links, and review products. Regardless, these are 100% my own opinions.





Valentine's Day is easily my favorite holiday of the year for classroom activities. I usually go all out with decorations and special centers and activities. In fact, last year, I did special February centers on rotation all month. February is crazy with Valentine's Day, Groundhog's Day, dental hygiene month, Black History month, President's Day, and sometimes Chinese New Year. That's a lot to cram into the shortest month of the year!

Oriental Trading has a ton of super cute and useful Valentine's Day materials for the classroom and teamed with my Pinterest finds... Valentine's Day is bound to be a blast. Take a look!

Here are some awesome Valentine's Day activities I found on Pinterest that use the materials I found on Oriental Trading's website. If you click the images, they will take you to the original post/site.

One of the things I grabbed from Oriental Trading was a set of Valentine's Day beads. I love using beads in my classroom. Currently I teach 2nd grade and we use lots of beads for number estimation, counting by 3s, 5s, 10s, etc. When I taught Kindergarten, beads were awesome to string on pipe cleaners and to practice fine motor. Here are some things I found on Pinterest to go with my set of Valentine's Day beads. (Remember, if you'd like to see the original post/site, click the image).

WAYS TO USE VALENTINE BEADS:

 

These are HUGE foam hearts. I saw them and originally thought of doing some sort of craft or presentation on them, which of course would be fine. However, Pinterest enlightened me on some other amazing ideas! Check it out!

WAYS TO USE GIANT FOAM HEARTS:

Can't step on the carpet game! LOVE this.

      

These doilies are so cute and I have always felt that doilies make great craft materials, especially for Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and Christmas. I grabbed a set of the mini's from Oriental Trading and they come in packs of 100! I also decided to grab some colored card stock because the colors are pretty and the price was on point. I thought these would make nice Valentines for family members, but 100 is LOT... so I found some other ideas to use those leftovers.

WAYS TO USE HEART DOILIES:

 

 

I stock up on these every year because there are endless possibilities with them. They are also pretty tasty, so that's always a plus. Here are just a handful of activities for them.

WAYS TO USE CONVERSATION HEART CANDIES:

 

    

Another extremely useful staple for the classroom are straws. How adorable are these Valentine's Day polka dot ones! I especially love the idea of making friendship bracelets for Valentine's Day!

  

  

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST:

It's a classroom quilt!!! I can't express how much I love this idea. The pictures I snagged weren't great, so this is from the website. I also ordered a pack of Valentine's Day ribbon to go with this for students to have more to decorate with.

Still need more? How about some NO-PREP FREEBIES from my TpT store! 

Monday Made It!

Every now and then I get in the crafty spirit, especially during Back to School season! This year is a lot different for me however, as I am 36 weeks pregnant and about to POP! I won't be headed into the classroom this year, but I am still itching to create, create, create! So, I made a little wall art for my son's nursery that I plan on making in the future for my classroom when I return and I just HAD to share! It's time for a Monday Made It!

And keep scrolling for a MARKDOWN MONDAY perfect for Back to School! :)

For this first one, I found some "Pinspiration," of course. This has been pinned on my Pinterest for ages and I finally got the supplies and went to work! This image is from the blog Catch My Party and they have a lot of crafty ideas.

I chose the colors of my baby boy's room and snagged some cardboard letters from Hobby Lobby on sale! Love it when that happens...

In her tutorial, she used Mod Podge, but I found that the hot glue gun was a lot easier and stuck a lot better, so I wound up using it the most. I wrapped the yarn vertically in areas that have a top and then made sure that the majority of the visible yarn was the same direction on each letter.

That "S" was no joke, people. This was after working on it for a while. It took a long time for me to find my rhythm, but once I did, I was whippin' on through that first "A." I got a lot of Netflix watching in during this project. ;) Added perk to crafting, if you ask me!

Finally finished the wrapping and then started hot gluing some dinosaurs to the letters! (Had to move to the coffee table because we needed the kitchen counter lol). I, of course, ran out of hot glue as I was adding those cute dinos... So those letters sat there for like a week until I finally went out for glue sticks.

And VOILA! I am totally loving it. It isn't on the wall yet, as we just finished our baby shower the other day. Once I get that nursery up and running, I'll share a picture of it above his crib on my Instagram! Make sure to follow HERE!

Speaking of baby shower, my mom totally made me CRY! She made the sweetest gift for my baby boy and even though I didn't make this one, I have to share. It is beautiful and completely, 100%, hand stitched.

Everything on the blanket has meaning to us. Our furbabies (Daisy and Pudgy) on on the top right. There's a policeman hat and nurse symbol for my husband's parents. There's a piano and a trumpet for my mom and stepdad. There's a penguin for me (my favorite!) and a Superman symbol for my husband. There's an Italian flag and a Native American dreamcatcher for my heritage. It's so wonderful and I can't express how much I LOVE IT!

Even though I am not returning to the classroom for this quickly approaching school year, I am doing some updating in my TpT shop and stumbled across my old Pirate theme classroom from two years ago. I thought I'd share the images because they are still SUPER adorable! Right now, for TODAY ONLY, the Table Numbers below are on sale for just $1.

My pirate ship desk! That was SUCH fun. The wrap around was created with 2 tri-fold Science Fair display boards. The wood look was created with wood grain contact paper from the dollar store. The red is duct tape, and the port holes are made of polka dot paper plates with blue construction paper. The flag is a matching plastic table cloth attached the a pool noodle (also wrapped in the wood contact paper).

This was our reading corner! The sail is a plastic table cloth attached to a pool noodle (wrapped in the wood contact paper). This stayed up all year, too. I was shocked it made it through the whirlwind of Kindergarten...

Found these frames from IKEA! This is an updated product in my store as well. Click the image to see more.

My paper plate word wall!

And last but not least, my construction paper X. I was in a portable that school year, which meant I could staple into the walls! Made decorating a heck of a lot easier, folks.

Oh Blog

Wow, ya'll. Life has REALLY gotten in the way of blogging and Teachers Pay Teachers lately! This week was the dreaded "I don't have a second to breathe" week, so I am STOKED that it is finally the weekend! So happy to be here blogging and reading the posts I'm so behind on (with my pumpkin spice coffee, of course).

First off, it's a new Currently and I'm only 10 days behind schedule! :P Thanks, Farley, as always for the awesome linky!

LISTENING: Living in Florida means lots of rain, people. Even in October.

LOVING: As mentioned before, this week was crazy-talk. I am SO happy it is the weekend!

THINKING: My blog needs more love and I think I can finally give it the attention it deserves each week after the craziness that was September.

WANTING: Every now and then I play video games with my husband on his live stream (twitch.tv/brutallstatic) and talk to viewers and just have a lot of fun. I did that last night and now I want to play some more! It is addicting!

NEEDING: Did I mention it is raining? Yeah, that means I breathe funny. Need to take some allergy medicine but it just makes me so darn sleepy!

BOO-TIFUL: Any time I play online on my husband's live stream, he always broadcasts that I'm the most beautiful woman in the world. It sure does make me feel like I am!

While I'm here, let me take the moment or two to tell you that I am feeling INSANELY motivated today (and I hope it sticks with me). In my county every grade level at every school has an appointed STEM lead that goes to trainings and inservices to bring back valuable information to the team and lots of resources and teaching strategies. I had one of these all-day collaborative planning days with the STEM leads for Second Grade yesterday and I learned SO MUCH. I was a little overwhelmed but after sleeping on the info and looking over everything this morning, I am so excited to get the next Math unit up and running.

If you have some great Math center ideas or hands-on Math ideas, link them in the comments or share the pins with me on Pinterest! I have a couple of boards that I have Math ideas in (one is general and has a lot of Kinder ideas in it from last year... and the others are general second grade and printables). Check them out below! I'll be pinning like a maniac this weekend I think.

Follow Amanda Smith @ Daisy Designs's board Math on Pinterest. Follow Amanda Smith @ Daisy Designs's board Second Grade on Pinterest. Follow Amanda Smith @ Daisy Designs's board Printables on Pinterest.

Oh Dear...

I have been away from my blog for FAR too long! How many of you are pulling your hair out right now with the craziness that is December? *raises hand*

My school participates in something called VSA (Very Special Arts). Our school has a large population of ESE students and in Florida, VSA is the state organization on arts and disability. Every year there is a theme for the school and we decorate our rooms, have things called "art stops" where classes are scheduled for students to participate in creating and learning about the arts. Here's a link to get more information to bring it to YOUR school in Florida. VSAFL.org.

Well, because I'm an overachiever, I decided I wanted to do an art stop. What was I thinking? I'm dying over here. Well, we will just let the Sunday Scoop tell it to ya straight...

So, dear readers, there ya have it. Everything on my Sunday Scoop is something I HAVE to do, but I ran out of room at the top. Sigh. There also wasn't enough room for: creating the train video for TOMORROW, go to my mom's house to feed and take out her dog since she's enjoying herself out of town, and OH, eat something at some point today. What happened to restful Sundays? Oh, right, I'm a teacher.

Although I have been neglecting my blog a big, I have NOT been neglecting my Pinterest! Check out my Christmas and holiday boards below and don't forget to follow! I have gotten a TON of ideas this month off of Pinterest. What did teachers do before Pinterest??

Follow Amanda Smith @ Daisy Designs's board Holiday Curriculum on Pinterest. Follow Amanda Smith @ Daisy Designs's board Christmas in the Classroom Collaborative - The Teaching 2 Step on Pinterest. Follow Amanda Smith @ Daisy Designs's board Kindergarten Crafts on Pinterest.