Celebrating Valentine’s Day in the Classroom

Valentine’s Day is such a fun holiday. I love that Valentine’s Day isn’t just a romantic holiday – it’s all about showing love to those you care about. Are you looking for some fresh ideas to celebrate Valentine’s Day in the classroom? Keep reading!

Valentine’s Day Party Activities

If you’re having a classroom party, try some of these fun game ideas with conversation hearts! You can find them individually boxed or in bags in bulk. Students can create graphs using candy hearts, as seen above. 

Do your students like to play Minute to Win It games? Use these game ideas as Minute to Win It or competition style games for your classroom party.

Students can also play Pour Your Heart Out. To play, they need a cup with 5 conversation hearts inside. Make sure that these conversation hearts have sayings on only one side – not both. Students will compete to shake and pour out their hearts with all 5 facing upward so that you can read the sayings. They’ll have to keep ‘rolling’ their hearts until all 5 face up. 

If this is too difficult, put 10 hearts in the cup and any that land face up, can be pushed aside. The rest will be put back in the cup to be rolled again until all hearts are gone from the cup.

Another simple game with conversation hearts is to see how many hearts they can stack on top of one another. If the stack falls, they have to start all over again!

This final conversation heart game requires large tweezers, as seen below. If you don’t have these in your classroom, check with other primary teachers. They are great for fine motor practice! Students will use the tweezers to move the conversation hearts from one bowl to another. The student that moves the most wins!

Independent Activities for Valentine’s Day

Sometimes the excitement of Valentine’s Day leads teachers to need some ‘quiet time.’ When I give my students an independent activity, they are rewarded with background music if they complete it at an appropriate volume. My students love listening to calming music while they work, and the perfect pair is an educational coloring activity! 

Coloring is a calming activity. Completing these math pages will be less stressful than doing a round of flashcards, so this is brain-friendly practice! Not only are your students engaging in math practice, but they are also working on fine motor skills. Coloring neatly inside the lines requires concentration.

On Valentine’s Day, you can also pull some printables from these review pages for students to get extra practice! These Valentine-themed pages give students practice in both ELA and math skills.

Exchanging Valentines in the Classroom

When it comes to delivering valentines, I would highly recommend keeping the bags simple. I love the idea pictured above from Teaching with a Mountain View! She does ‘compliment bags’ with her students. They write compliments on the bags before they exchange valentines. Paper bags are also very easy to staple shut after valentines have been exchanged. I’ve students spill their valentines before leaving for the day, so securing the bags is always a high priority for me!

I like to give my students an item instead of candy – they get enough of that already! Last year I gave them crayons with this little tag. I’ve also given them kinetic sand and pencils in the past!

If you want to create valentines for your students to exchange, these animal pun crafts are quick, easy, and cute! Students can write a quick note to a friend and decorate their animal. 

Want more Valentine’s Day resources? Check out this blog post!

Or check out more activities for Valentine’s Day!

I hope these ideas help you have the best Valentine’s Day party yet! Sending you love!

-Libby