Educational | Thinking Zing

Valentine’s Day Conversation Starters

Let’s talk about love!

Are you looking for Conversation Starters for your family dinners or to use as prompts in school? We created over 100 fun Valentine’s Day Conversation starters to encourage reflection and creativity. They are a fun way to celebrate Valentine’s Day for the whole family or small groups in the classroom. They also make journal and writing prompts.

The Valentine’s Day Conversation Starters are engaging, fun and lead to some insightful conversations. They are all about love, friendship, family and more.

Purchase the conversation cards from Teachers Pay Teachers, cut them out, and start talking!

Other Ideas for Celebrating Valentine’s Day

Kindness Hearts: kindness activity designed to help spread kindness, inspiration, gratitude and positive messages

Love Quotes: great as a Valentine’s Day writing prompts, discussion cards or gift.

Mindful Hearts: great for helping students with anxiety and stress. They make a fun and engaging Valentine’s Day Activity! The labyrinths (mazes) are often effective for helping students focus and calm down.

Heart Affirmations: 160 different positive affirmation cards for students on watercolor hearts perfect for Valentine’s Day or anytime throughout the school year. Great positive thinking activity for building students’ self-esteem. Reminds students to focus on their personal strengths.

Follow us on Pinterest and Facebook for more fun Valentine’s Day ideas.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

More Kindness Resources

Visit our Kindness Page to learn about reasons and ways to be kind. We have some great activities for students so they can practice Intentional Acts of Kindness!

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Behavior Reflection and Apology Letter

Educational, Ideas/Advice

Your child isn’t perfect!

I know it sounds crazy, right?

The fact is all kids make mistakes and bad choices sometimes.

But we want them to because that’s part of growing up and how they learn right from wrong. The critical part of learning from these events is the adult response. If a child is punished without the proper support they may feel humiliation, shame or even anger which doesn’t support effective learning for the situation.

If, on the other hand, the adult provides the child time to reflect in a non-threatening environment then the child has time and the awareness to empathize, respect the consequences, and consider alternative choices in the future.

Adults can use these learning opportunities to teach empathy, compassion, and respect; that its okay to make mistakes as long as we take something positive away from each experience; and how to apologize to others so that children learn the accountability that goes along with a high social and emotional intelligence.

How does the Behavior Reflection and Apology Letter help?

The Thinking Zing Behavior Reflection worksheet helps children recognize how their actions impact others and the Apology Letter template helps them to communicate their regrets so they may move forward in a positive way.

The Behavior Reflection worksheet and Apology Letter can be purchased from my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

For more creative family activities and ideas, follow us on Pinterest and Facebook.

Reflect on your choices!

Weekly Exit Slips

Educational, Ideas/Advice, Think Book Series

Journal your way to success!

There’s no better way to understanding your achievements and to help you set new goals than to take some time to reflect and record your observations. Articulating successes, challenges, and learnings helps you celebrate your achievements, motivates you to continue those successes or overcome those obstacles, and helps you to plan ahead and identify future ambitions.

They are Growth Mindset focused!

The Weekly Exit Slips Guided Journal

The Weekly Reflection Exit Slips guided journal is a series of prompts and questions to help kids reflect on their personal growth and identify new goals. Product includes 13 different reflection sheets. Each weekly sheet focuses on the following areas: highlights of the week, learning & exploring, and the upcoming week. To complement the reflection and motivational aspects other social and emotional topics are included such as gratitude, curiosity, doodles, acts of kindness and other thinking prompts. This would be great for the classroom, homeschool and for any parent who wants to supplement their child’s development and Thinking IQ.

How to use Weekly Exit Slips:

They are a great reflection activity for Fridays or to complete during the week. You can send your students home with for the weekend to share with their parents as a way to discuss their growth and learning process. You can also send them home for the students to work on during the weekend.

Homeschool families also enjoy them as a way for students at various grade levels to have the same activity.

It is fun for students to keep them in a binder all year and look at their progress and growth at the end of the school year.

Where to Purchase

The Weekly Exit Slips can be purchased from my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

More Resources

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School Year Reflection & Memories Think Book

Educational, Think Book Series

Kids are always excited for the end of the school year and start of summer break. Giving them a chance to reflect on their experiences, accomplishments and growth helps them develop pride and positive feelings about the school year.

Spending some time reflecting on the school year is important. Kids learn how to bring closure while reflecting on their experiences and accomplishments. When a student has a chance to discuss and pull together all their successes and growth they develop a sense of pride in their hard work and commitment.

What is the School Year Reflection & Memories Think Book?

Our School Year Reflection & Memories Think Book gives students a place to reflect and record their school year memories. It is a printable packet for teachers or parents to use to help students reflect on their memories and accomplishments from the school year.

Purchase

You can purchase the School Year Reflections & Memories Think Book from my TPT store

Blogging Guide for Kids & Students

Educational, Think Book Series

Blogs are a great outlet for kids to share their thoughts, feelings and ideas but the notion of starting a blog can be overwhelming: How do I set it up? What do I write about? How do I write different types of articles? How do I engage my audience?

Inspired by our own kids who wanted to start a soccer blog, we created the Think Blog: Blog Writing Guide for Kids.

What is it?

Our blogging guide for kids is a resource for elementary and middle school students to help plan, organize and create their own blog. It includes information regarding blogs, organization and profile worksheets, article idea brainstorming prompts, writing worksheets for 18 types of articles, an article planning worksheet and an article reflection worksheet.

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End of the School Year Reflection

Educational, Think Book Series

Spending some time reflecting on the school year is important. Kids learn how to bring closure while reflecting on their experiences and accomplishments. When a student has a chance to discuss and pull together all their successes and growth they develop a sense of pride in their hard work and commitment.

I have created this printable packet for teachers or parents to use to help students reflect on their memories and accomplishments from the school year. You can purchase the School Year Reflections & Memories Think Book from my TPT store. To download a free sample of the School Year Reflections & Memories Think Book please visit my TPT store here.

Follow us on Pinterest for other ideas and suggestions for enriching your child’s education.

Reading Challenge

Educational, Ideas/Advice

Do your kids have a daily reading routine where they read the same time, same place and even similar type of books every day?

Help your kids get out of a “Reading Rut” with reading challenges.

If so, help spark their interest and passion for reading by suggesting challenges of unique places to read and genres. These challenges are fun for both reluctant readers as well as kids who already love to read.

Make your own Reading Challenge sheet by brainstorming fun places a child could read, the types of books and even people they could read to. To save time, you are welcome to purchase our Reading Challenge sheets on Teachers Pay Teachers. It includes 2 different reading challenge sheets.

Our Reading Challenge sheet turns summer reading into a scavenger hunt of reading places and genres. The Reading Challenge sheet makes a great addition to a summer packet for teachers to give to students at the end of the school year.

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