(Thanks to Fifth Grade Teacher Amy Bernard  for her “friendly letter lesson” from Loser,  for inspiring this idea!)

Here’s a little fun twist for Valentine’s Day that you may or may not have tried: A quick contest, open to any student in the school (or by grade level, etc)  to promote empathy and understanding.

RULES: Students may create a Valentine for the main character in a book the whole class has been reading (especially a character who needs some of our empathy to be understood!). Keep Valentines to a uniform size. These Valentines can be displayed on hall or classroom bulletin boards before Valentine’s Day. Teachers and staff will select a few school-wide for recognition at an All School Meeting or to be read over the intercom or posted on the school website on or the day after Valentine’s Day. A little Valentine’s Day surprise might also be given to some Valentine authors on/or the day after Valentine’s Day.

At our school, we’ve been reading Jerry Spinelli’s book, Loser, (see A School-Wide “Read-Aloud”) and in addition to the main character, Donald Zinkoff, there are a host of characters needing empathy and understanding that all our students are familiar with.  We will open up the contest a little more and see what happens. It should be fun to see what creativity and compassion emerges.