Valentine's Day Learning and Classroom Activities for Children

Valentines Day should be a fun and happy day for children. It is a day when teachers have the opportunity to help their students learn in a more creative and fun way. No matter what subject is being taught, there is always a way to incorporate a fun Valentine's Day theme into your lesson plans. Here are five great activities and games to help teachers take full advantage of this day.

Activity #1: Broken Heart Match Up: Use red construction paper to cut out large hearts. You will need one heart for every two students for each time you wish to play the game. Write a question or a problem on one half of the heart (ex.10 + 20). Write the answer on the other half of the heart (ex. 30). Cut the hearts in half with fancy edged scissors. Give each child a half of the heart. Allow the children to match up with one another to find the correct answer to the missing half of their heart to make their heart whole again. This game that can be used with math story problems, vocabulary words, addition/subtraction problems, and many other lesson plans.

Activity #2: Finding The Pieces To My Heart: The object of this game is to create a learning scavenger hunt for the students. Use red construction paper to cut out a heart for each student. Cut each heart in half and then each half in half again. You should now have a heart that is cut into four quarters. In the top left corner of the heart, write a clue as to where you have previously hidden the next section of the heart, (ex. the clue for the first quarter of heart could be "The next part of your heart is found in the bookshelf with first president of the United States" meaning that you hid the next section of the heart in a book about George Washington. Once the student finds the second part of their heart they have to race back to their desk & match it up with the first then read the clue that is printed on the second section to then find the third section and so on. The child that finds all sections of their heart and pieces them together is the winner.

Activity #3: Goodness Of The Heart: This game is a based more on a rewards systems. The object of the game is collect as many points (hearts) as possible by Valentines Day. Begin the contest early in the month of February, allowing the children plenty of time to collect their hearts. Cut hearts out of poster paper or construction paper. Each heart is worth one point. Each student is rewarded for succeeding in different expectations, such as good grades on a test, completing homework, helping other students, completing classwork, etc. To make the contest more challenging, try having a bonus round the last day of the contest. For the bonus round simply write math, science or history questions on the chalkboard, allow the students to write the answers down on a sheet of paper. Every correct answer is worth a bonus heart. Bonus hearts are worth ten points each. The child with the most points (hearts) wins a prize.

Activity #4: Allow your students to create a acrostic poem using words associated with Valentines Day, such as love, valentine, cupid, heart, etc....You could also encourage the students to choose a special person in their life as the subject, such as their mother, a grandmother, an aunt, a teacher etc... That person could be designated as their subject. After the project is finished they could then give the poem to that special person as a valentines card. An acrostic form of poetry use the first letter of the word for each line of the poem. The letters are aligned vertically to form a word. The word is often is the subject of the poem. For example if the subject was Love the poem could read: L - loving (1st line), O - outstanding (2nd line), V - valuable (3rd line), E - exciting. Supply your students with a list of suggestions and examples to help get them started.

Activity 5: This is simple and easy game for most older elementary school students. Ask the children to write as many words as they can find within the phrase "Happy Valentine's Day". The child that can discover the most words spelled correctly is the winner. This game helps kids to focus and improves spelling skills at the same time.

The activities listed above are just a few ways to help children improve their learning skills and have fun at the same time. Children are more ready to learn when learning is made fun.