Sweet Valentine’s Day Ideas
Posted by Jen Bragg on 09 Feb 2009 | Posted in: Holiday and Seasonal, Student Activities
It’s hard to believe it’s February already and Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! Some people I know think this is simply a greeting card holiday, but I think it’s a nice opportunity for students to share with others how much they care. My second graders were always eager to make and distribute valentines, so each year I found ways to carve out time for students to do just that. In California, I was lucky enough to have a team of room parents who planned fun classroom activities for us (aka “a party”) on this day. Students played guessing games, created patterns while constructing candy necklaces, used candy to make butterflies and airplanes, and to top it off, decorated heart-shaped sugar cookies. Yes, a lot of sugar, but also a lot of fun!
What are your school plans for Valentine’s Day 2009? Will you have a party? If so, can you even call it that? Will your students deliver valentines? I’d love to know what you are planning!
If you’re looking for Valentine’s Day ideas, The Mailbox® magazine, grades 2/3, has a few of them sprinkled throughout the issue. Page 25 features a display called “Nouns We Love,” and page 34 explains how to incorporate money skills to make a decorated valentine bag. Page 56 tells how to make an “un-frog-gettable” valentine holder, and page 58 includes an idea for delivering valentines. And don’t forget Teacher’s Helper® magazine, grades 2/3. There’s a super-cute heart-themed unit on pages 17–24.
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I put your blog to my facebook favourite sites.
Hi,
This year for Valentine’s Day I created a Smilebox using the children’s pictures in a slideshow. I took a video of the children opening their valentines at the Valentine party. I got permission to ask for e-mail addresses in a note sent home to parents. Those who responded received an electronic Valentine card with all the children’s pictures.
I entered the Smilebox in the Smilebox Love & Smiles Contest and was selected as one of the six finalists to be posted on the Smilebox blog. It is #6 – Valentine’s Party.
Jackie
Hi! I teach preschool and holidays are always a blast with my students! During the couple of weeks surrounding Valentine’s Day, we talk about friendship and letters. The students make special Valentine cards for their families. The students are then able to purchase stamps from the teacher and we take this time to talk about coin value. As a class we take a trip to the post office (we have a post office in walking distance) and the students are able to place their special cards in the mail slot. When the students’ families receive these cards in the mail, it not only puts a smile on the faces of those families, but it also excites the children when they see that the cards came through the mail!
I love to turn the entire day into a Valentine’s Day!
Our math lesson is to graph conversation heart colors. For reading, we participate in a reader’s theatre about
Valentine’s Day. Language Arts is filled with hearts. On each heart is either a contraction, or the words needed to create a contraction. The students choose a heart and then look for their partners. I do a word building activity with the letters from Valentine’s Day. One of the favorites involves mystery words. I place hearts with a letter on each heart inside a brown lunch bag. When I say go….the kids work in small groups to arrange the letters from the bag into words. I make sure to use theme related words, such as chocolate and sweetheart. Even though the kids are focused on Valentine’s Day….they are willing to work through each activity……and I’m thrilled to get some extra skill practice built into the day!
This year our preschoolers are having a dinosaur theme Valentine’s Party. Which they voted on at the end of last month. We have talked about dinosaurs, they made Valentine holders that are dinosaurs that they painted and decorated with hearts and I covered cereal boxes and hot glued them to the cereal box. The parents all signed up for a special treats for our party. We are having “Swamp Punch”, and dino cookies, and celery and carrots for the plant eating dinosaurs! We will play games and open Valentines!! Can’t wait! The children also created Dinosaurs with salt dough painted them, named them and told what they like to eat, and do. I have them around our room with the words the children told me.
Great ideas! We have been talking about Presidents day, so I decided to make tall Lincoln hats with each students picture in middle of heart on the hat wearing a beard. Around the rim would be: _____ Lincoln’s Valentines. Thought this would be cute because Lincoln kept important letters in his hat and we could put our special valentines in ours!
My students make a valentine poster for convalescent homes. Because our area has many homes for older adults, our school decided that each grade would take a holiday and make something to deliver to the residents. This year kindergarten has Valentine’s Day so it is up to us teachers to come up with something to deliver. The kindergarten children sing Christmas songs to the residents during December so they have already been to the homes. This way they already know the place where their posters will be going and have met the people. The convalescent homes look forward to our gifts. Some other ideas we’ve done were: placemats for the residents, turkey’s, flowers in a flower pot, flags made for Memorial day.
The kindergarteners make decorated paper bags for their “mailboxes.” These are displayed in the classroom. The week of Valentines’ Day, the students start to bring in their valentines. Each child is a “mailperson” who delivers their valentines to the correct mailbag. This year the refreshments (that the parents contribute)will be enjoyed on Friday when the children get to open their valentine “letters” they find in their mailbags. They really enjoy getting the valentines–especially the ones with candy, toys or pencils enclosed with them. Oh, the excitement and “Look at this one. . .I got three like this. . .etc.”
We have a Valentine Day Tea. The children dress up in something of their parents and we have tablecloths, china dishes, silver tea service, flowers in vaces and soft lights and music. The children have decorated their placemats that we use and we eat cookies and drink apple juice. We practice manners for a week before the “tea” and they are proficient at saying yes please or no thank you when served. We practice talking quietly and waiting until everyone is served before eating, and then not leaving until everyone is finished. The parents come and video the event. Special people are invited such as the principal and speach teacher and others that work with the children.
The Valentine’s Party is one of three parties that first grade can offically have at our school. We do crafts, exchange Valentine’s, and eat junk food. I always try to have my parties at the end of the day on Fridays. Then I don’t have to refocus them.
Hi, I really enjoy the children with sharing their valentines with all the other children in class.