Fun Valentine Bookmarks for Students

Almost all of our students give candy to each other for Valentine's Day.  Each of them go home with enough sugar to keep them energized for days.  My co-teacher and I wanted to give the students something different that was fun, useful, and inexpensive. Oh, and neither one of us had a great deal of time last week to devote to the project. Thankfully, I had a brainstorm while brushing my teeth on Thursday morning.

I thought it would be funny to use a website to put our faces on funny pictures and create bookmarks for the kids. My amazing co-teacher pointed out that it was a great idea, but would be cuter with the students' pictures instead of ours. It took much longer to create the bookmarks her way, but she was absolutely right. The bookmarks turned out to be adorable and a big hit with the kids. Since we already had cardstock and access to the school's color copier and laminator, our only cost was the ribbon.

There are several free sites that will let you add your face to another photo. The best one I found that had choices appropriate for third graders, was Photofunia. I recommend taking a simple photo of each student early in the year, so you will be prepared when genius strikes at the eleventh hour. I set up a simple template with a message and inserted the jpegs downloaded from Photofunia. By the time the bookmarks were finished, I didn't have much time to take pictures before handing them out to students on Friday afternoon. The pictures aren't great, but you can get the idea. Please leave comments below of your best student Valentine ideas. Hopefully, I can start a little earlier next year!