BARBERTON, Ohio — On Valentine’s Day, some people want chocolate, a nice dinner, and maybe flowers, too, but one Barberton kindergarten class just wants Valentine's cards from all 50 states.
At Barberton Primary School, Kindergarten teacher Mindy Jackson came up with an idea to get her students excited about writing.
“It's just hard, because they're just learning their letters and sounds and now, they have to put it all together,” said Jackson.
The class calls their project, "Love Makes the World Go Round.” Their goal is to get 50 cards from all 50 states across the nation. Jackson reached out to parents and posted on social media for help. The cards came fast and the students enjoyed it.
“They're super excited. Some of the kids got cards from their family and friends from out of state. A lot of them are saying it's bringing them joy,” Jackson said.
When they get them, they read them, but the students also write cards, sending love to other Kindergarten classes across the U.S.
They get about 30 letters a day, and so far, they've received cards from 27 states, marking every one on a map hanging in their classroom.
“The big hearts on the map are from the states that we got and then there's small hearts, the small hearts are if we got multiple cards from that state, so we can keep track of how many cards we got,” Jackson said.
But they're not done yet. They still have 23 more states to go. Jackson said it got more attention than she expected. She’s happy they did it, because with a simple card, these students are learning how to read, write and love.
“It's a way for them to spread kindness too, because they're writing cards back to some people and we're talking a lot about emotion. We do a lot of social emotional things in our classroom. So this is a way to talk about their feelings and the way things make them feel too,” Jackson said.
We also learned another class at Barberton Primary is also taking part in then project.
If you want to help and send a card, the address is:
Mrs. Jackson Kindergarten Class
1151 Shannon Avenue
Barberton, OH 44203
