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Warm fuzzy books, a favorite item of my childhood education! Every kid in Mrs. Astle’s class couldn’t wait for their turn to receive the warm fuzzy book and choose the color of warm fuzzy for the front cover! I had her for both my 2nd and 3rd grade years. I loved her so much and she loved us. You could just feel it, you know? Once I decided to become a teacher, I knew that I would pass the warm fuzzy tradition along in my class with my own students!
You may be wondering what exactly is a Warm Fuzzy Book? A warm fuzzy book is full of little letters from everyone of your classmates, and your teacher! These letters are full of compliments and cute drawings that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Oh, and the cover is a fuzzy little circle monster with big googly eyes! Can you think of a better way to build a positive classroom community?
So, in order for these to be awesome, you really need to spend time together getting to know each other (we do this daily during crew aka morning meeting and other times throughout the day, everyday). We write one warm fuzzy book each week on Warm Fuzzy Wednesdays. So you can backwards plan and start on week 15 if you have 25 students. (It would be awesome for you to pencil this in your planner ahead of time so that you can make sure everyone gets a turn. If a kid really needs a boost on a week that wasn’t originally theirs, then you can do a switch with another kid)
Bonus, I teach and reteach each week how to correctly write a letter using voice, conventions, spelling, character traits & more! Hello 1st and 2nd grade common core state standards being hit!
Here is what I suggest you have to make your warm fuzzy books and how I did them with my class.
First, get your materials. You will need:
* handwriting paper (I used primary lined paper and cut in in half sheets using my paper cutter)
* black cardstock or heavy paper
*felt circles about 3-4 inches, in a variety of colors to be the warm fuzzy monster on the front cover (or if you want to do them like the ones in the picture, you will need foam circle cutouts and fuzzy fabric from the fabric store. You will want to glue the circles onto the fabric before cutting or you will have fuzz eeevvveeerrryyywhere. True story.)
* big googly eyes (The dollar store sells a pack that has these in it with some small ones, so I save the small ones for later)
* glue
* a white crayon or metallic permanent marker
* stapler with staples
* An awesome parent volunteer! I loved my parents and always found that there were many that would love to help with take-home projects. I sent them home with everything but the lined paper and crayon to assemble the front covers for me.
Now, you have everything prepped and you’re ready to go! Let me tell you how I ran Warm Fuzzy Wednesdays!
I chose Wednesdays because we had library on that day (and bonus for the alliteration!) I used a 20 minute block to do warm fuzzies. The 1st 5ish minutes was brainstorming with me and the rest of the time was used for everyone to write. The warm fuzzy recipient got to go out in the hall with my super supplies to color or read so that they wouldn’t hear all of the wonderful things we had to say about them during our brainstorm session! If my kids didn’t finish in that time, they could finish when they were done checking out their library book. We built a culture of getting them finished so that the warm fuzzy person could take home their special book!
So, I’ve sent the warm fuzzy recipient into the hall with my special markers and crayons, and am ready to brainstorm character traits with my littles about our friend. I start by letting the kids give me adjectives about their actions, behaviors, feelings, words, etc. (just like we would do when we describe a character from a book). If they are struggling to come up with ideas, I will ask them about what the warm fuzzy student is like during specials classes (For a lot of kids, this is their time to shine!) I will also bring up things like, “He turned in the dollar on popcorn day that he found in the hall instead of keeping it! Wow! What is a word we can use to describe him?” When we have a whiteboard with several words we start writing as a class.
I turn on my doc cam and grab a paper just like the ones they will use. We start writing our letter by having different kids remind us about the important parts of a letter (I have already explicitly taught this using an anchor chart). We write the date, choose a greeting and spell their name correctly using a capital letter. Then, we use an adjective or two to make a variety of simple and complex sentences using proper conventions. We write a few sentences together. Then we choose a closing, add our comma and sign our name.
But….. we don’t want 24 of the exact same letter, so I encourage my students to give their own voice to their letters. They need to use some different examples, synonyms and sentences that are personal between them as friends. They need at least 3 complete sentences, with their best handwriting & kid spelling (I tell them that these are their friends, not teachers, reading these letters). If they have time leftover before library, they need to double check their work and then they can add little drawings.
I am also writing my letter during this time. What about the students who struggle? Well, I differentiate quickly of course! Maybe 1-2 are writing the letter we made as a class, another might be at my rainbow table with me where they are copying a sentence they told me and I wrote on a mini whiteboard, or mayyyybe I have used a highlighter on their paper with their words and they are tracing that highlighter.
Every kid is on-task because we have built that culture of letting the warm fuzzy person take their book home. “How would you feel if it were your special warm fuzzy day and you didn’t get to take it home because the letters were not finished?” It is a meaningful letter and they can’t wait to give it to their friend!
I do a quick check as they turn in their letter, reminding them of forgotten items like their name or ending punctuation. I let the warm fuzzy person choose their favorite color monster for their cover and write their name. I put my letter in first, followed by everyone else’s and staple it all together!
I still have mine after all these years, and I bet most of my students do too! You want to hear something else really sweet? A few years ago my dad got a brain tumor that took him away from us within the week. While I was gone, a parent (maybe more of them) got together with my class and made me a warm fuzzy book with letters from all of my students that year. I felt so loved by my kids and parents (and teachers who took over my sub plans entirely). It is something I will always keep and treasure.
* Kudos to the parents who sent me photos for this blog post! I reached out to several of the parents I have as FB friends asking for pictures of the warm fuzzy books and they sent them to me!
Check out my blog post and product on building classroom community! Click the picture to the left to go to the blog post.
Don’t forget to get a free heart map activity below that will also help you build your class community by having each student share what is important to their heart. You can also get my class puzzle activity for free!
My resource below is available in my TPT shop!
