What can YOU make out of a heart shape?

It won't be long before it's Valentine's Day! Time to start planning those Valentine activities now so you can put them on display for the big day. You could have your students make a picture on the computer. It's a great way to practice using the mouse, to learn how to use the tools in a drawing program like Kidpix, and to inspire creativity. What kind of picture do you suppose a first or second grade student could create if they started with a heart shape? Of course that would depend on which way the heart shape was facing. If it's a regular heart shape, you could create a bunny...

a butterfly or a ladybug...

If the heart is facing sideways, you could create a fish or maybe a spider...

If it's an upside down heart, you might turn it into a cat or a puppy dog...

First and second grade students have pretty good imaginations. With a little help from you, they can come up with some creative ways to turn a heart shape into something fun. What can YOU make out of a heart shape?

There's a Wocket in my Pocket!

I realize that March is still nearly 2 months away, but I thought I'd share a fun project that I do with the pre-k students. If you like planning ahead, you can get this in your planbook early!


As you may know, Dr. Seuss's birthday is March 2nd. It's easy for me to remember this because it's also my oldest daughter's birthday! I like to do activities revolving around Dr. Seuss's stories that week. The PreK boys and girls and I read There's a Wocket in my Pocket in the Library. Then during Computers we create our own Wockets using Kidpix. We look at the illustrations in the book and make note of all the different characteristics of the various Wockets. They are different colors. Some have really long tails. Some have feathers coming out of the top of their head. Some have duck feet. I encourage the students to be creative. It's a lot of fun to see what they come up with!

These are some of the pre-k Wockets from past years:

When their Wockets are finished and saved, I print them as wallet-sized color pictures. I have a piece of tagboard for each student that says, "There's a Wocket in my Pocket", at the top and has a book pocket attached underneath. (If you're wondering what a book pocket is, check out the picture below.) The pictures are the perfect size to fit in these book pockets. The PreK boys and girls are excited at the end of class when they find out that they have their very own Wocket in a Pocket to take home!

Making Patterns in KidPix

This lesson can be done at any time of the year. We happen to do this in December, so I added a Christmas theme to it. First I sit the students down, and we talk about what a pattern is. I create a pattern by having the students alternate standing up, sitting down, standing up, sitting down, and standing up. Then we talk about what the next student would have to do to continue the pattern. I pick a student to show us the answer by joining the pattern. We do several more examples like this, making some of them harder by creating a pattern of 3 repeating. After the students have done several examples, they head to their seats where they finish some Christmas patterns in Kidpix using the Rubber Stamp (see example below). After they complete the Christmas patterns, I challenge them to create a pattern of their own. When they are finished, we add their name to the page and print it off for them to take home.