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February is the month that keeps going from one special event to the next. Before you know it, the month will be over when it feels like it has just begun! However, February is a month that is hard to go by without adding some fun Valentine’s Day activities and centers to your lesson plans.
What I love about Valentine’s Day is the lessons that can be taught and learned. This holiday is the perfect time to encourage kindness, love, appreciation, and friendship.
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I am excited to share with you my ideas on how I like to incorporate this special day with different Valentine’s Day Activities and Centers. There are so many opportunities to discuss all of the wonderful lessons that Valentine’s Day teaches with these activities.
What are some of your favorite Valentine’s Day read-alouds? I love kid-friendly stories that share the meaning of this special day, funny Valentine stories, and also stories that we can add follow-up activities to.
Valentine’s Day is such a fun theme to add to your math and literacy skills. I also love the overall feel that these activities bring to the classroom during this time. It is truly a feeling of love and appreciation for each other!
I mentioned how I love to have a Valentine’s Day read aloud where I can add a follow-up activity. The adorable story ‘The Biggest Valentine Ever’ by Steven Kroll is the perfect story for comparing characters in a story.
Students get to sort different things that the main characters did to make their Valentine using a heart-shaped Venn diagram.
What I also love about this story is the overall message that when they worked together they were able to make something amazing which was the biggest Valentine ever!
Of course, we had to make our very own version of the biggest Valentine ever that they made in the story.
Students LOVE making these hearts into a mouse craft just like the one in the story.
During the time that we talk about Valentine’s Day, I like to discuss so many different things we appreciate and love.
An activity where we specifically discuss this is when I have students think about a person, place, and thing that they love. This is a great time to do modeled writing or interactive writing.
Students get to write about a person, place, and thing that they love. After that, they can draw a picture to go with their writing and glue them onto colored hearts. Last, they turn those hearts into a large 3D heart! Your students will be amazed and love sharing this Valentine’s Day craft with their friends and family.
This activity is also a great way to introduce or practice working on nouns!
Sometimes having a hands-on activity to practice CVC words are just what we need for a break in the action or maybe as an extra whole group or small group activity.
This heart slider makes building CVC words a whole new level of fun and interactive!
Students get to slide a paper arrow through the heart. Each time they slide the arrow to a new picture, they get to use letters to build the CVC words.
One of my favorite ways to teach different math skills is through hands-on activities and Valentine’s Day has so many fun ideas.
During this time of year, we are focusing a lot on addition and subtraction. Now that students have learned both skills, I like to do activities where both addition and subtraction are combined. I also like to do addition activities one day and subtraction activities another day. I feel that doing this really allows students to get lots of practice with both skills.
More importantly, I have noticed that students really pay attention to the addition and subtraction symbols so that they are solving the equations correctly.
We can’t have Valentine’s Day without candy right?? This fun and hands-on Valentine’s Day addition activity allows students to see how two groups are put together to find the sum.
Students roll a dice, count the dots, and place that number of M&M’s (or any candy) on part of the heart. Then, they repeat these steps for the second part of the heart. Last, they count how many M&M’s they have altogether to find the sum.
Students get to write the addition equations that they create with the dice and get to eat the M&M’s in the end!
I love adding a craft whenever I get the chance and especially when it is a learning craft! This love bug addition craft has students make a love bug, place hearts on each side of the wings, and create an addition equation to go with those hearts.
Add these love bugs to a bulletin board for an adorable Valentine’s Day craft display!
I really like for my students to get a deeper understanding of what subtraction means by having them see and feel that subtraction is taking away.
This Valentine’s Day math activity has students solving subtraction equations by placing the correct number of hearts to start the equation. Then, they look at how many they need to take away and place that many hearts in the envelope. However many hearts they have left is the answer.
Using an envelope and hearts adds so much fun to practicing subtraction by making it feel like they are mailing hearts.
With all of this addition and subtraction practice, I like to get a little tricky by combining both skills together!
Students get to sort hearts that have both addition and subtraction equations on them. Once they solve the equations, they get to glue it underneath the correct number in a flipbook.
During this month, do you like to add Valentine’s Day centers into your math and literacy center rotations?
I have 4 FREE Valentine’s Day centers to share with you! I have included 2 math centers and 2 literacy centers with a Valentine’s Day theme.
Each Valentine’s Day center includes:
You can add these to your centers rotations, morning tubs, early finishers, or small groups. They also can be used on the days leading up to Valentine’s Day as well as the days following.
You can grab these free Valentine’s Day Centers in the picture above this.
I am so glad you stopped by and more importantly I hope you were able to get some new Valentine’s Day Activities and Ideas!
If you would like to add these Valentine’s Day activities to your classroom or home you can grab them below:
Be sure to save these Valentine’s Day activities and centers ideas to your favorite Pinterest board so that you can come back anytime for hands-on and engaging activities that you can add to your classroom or home!
These alphabet books will have students dive deep into learning about each letter of the alphabet while eager to see what activity they get to complete next!
