Here are four activities for celebrating Valentine’s Day with elementary students. Each activity is centered around the theme of kindness. Consider trying these activities with your students so that February 14th is more about showing appreciation than candy and cards.
Valentine’s Day is all about love, and what shows love in the elementary classroom more than simple acts of kindness? This Valentine’s Day incorporate teaching about kindness into your classroom with these simple ideas.
Persuasive Writing
Help your kids practice Persuasive Writing with a fun version of “love letters.” In these letters, students make a claim like “my mom and dad are the best” and then list three reasons to support their opinion. I differentiate this lesson by giving students a claim or allowing students to write their own. As a bonus, this is a great valentine gift idea students can share with their parents.
Make a Kindness Quilt
Read the book The Kindness Quilt by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. Ask students to brainstorm ways they are kind and document their responses on a quilt square. Students may enjoy partnering with another class to make their quilt larger and build community within your school as well. Use the sentence starter: I am kind when to help students get started and provide additional support.
Record 100 Acts of Kindness
Valentine’s Day often falls around the 100th day of school. You can celebrate both at the same time with a hundreds chart record of classroom acts of kindness. Have students use a bingo dot marker or stickers to record when they see another classmate do something kind. To extend the kindness to the whole community, try to collect 100 cans for a local food pantry.
Read All About Kindness
There are so many great picture books that demonstrate different ways we can all be kind. Here are some of my favorites:
- What Does It Mean To Be Kind by Rana DiOrio
- Be Kind by Pat Zietlow Miller
- Last Street on Market Street by Matt de la Pena
- How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer
- Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev
Here are some additional resources for celebrating Valentine's Day with your students: Valentine's Day Activity Packet, Valentine's Day Math Word Problems, and Top Valentine's Day Printables for K-8.
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Author Bio
Kelly Hiltz is a kindergarten teacher and mom of two boys in Massachusetts. Her happiest days are spent outside with a good book and a swim. She blogs about positive parent/teacher relationships at Ask a Teacher Mom.
