Valentine’s Day is such a fun time of year for elementary students! Although we don’t make it a big huge deal, we DO talk about friendship and kindness. I also make sure to plan some fun Valentine’s Day lessons and activities.
I thought I’d share a few with you today!
Valentine’s Day Math Games
Although most of my Valentine’s Day activities take place in the few days surrounding the holiday, I do put out Valentine’s Day math games for the entire month of February. It’s good to keep things new and interesting, and my students LOVE these games! The ones I use are geared toward improving multiplication fact fluency, and they are differentiated so all students can work at their “just right” level of challenge. See what you think! I sometimes save the last 15 minutes of a math class for games, and at other times some students may be playing games while I work with the rest. These can even be printed in black and white to send home! CLICK HERE to see more.
Valentine’s Problem Solving
One thing that I love to do is to make math as “real world” as possible. When I use my Thinker Task problems, it allows my students to USE math to solve problems that they actually could encounter in real life. Whether it’s planning a Valentine’s Day celebration or planning a sleepover or having a bake sale–real world math lets students make sense of multi-step problems. In fact, when given a task with multiple parts and multiple solution options, students are forced to think about math in entirely new ways. No longer are they trying to fill in a blank, but they need to come up with math systems to organize their work, explain their thinking, and check for reasonableness. These tasks are GREAT for that!
If you want to check out a great Valentine’s Day math task, just CLICK HERE to learn more. Because these tasks are differentiated, you can use them with your entire class at different levels. Remember, too, that even giving a child a tool such as a calculator can make a great math activity accessible when without the tool it is not. We so often focus on basic computation with our most struggling students rather than find ways to make some of the upper level math accessible. It’s so important! You can print this task OR use it digitally for tons of flexibility.
Valentine’s Day Bulletin Board and Book Review
I have an entire blog post to explain this one, but I love to have students do this fun bulletin board to accomplish a few things:
- Get their creativity on!
- Practice their opinion writing
- Share excitement for great books!
I’d love for you to check it out! My students LOVE this project and love to see their work up in the hall. In fact, in recent years, I’ve invited all the fourth grades to participate so we have more than 100 heart book reviews up on the wall!
Fun Activities for Valentine’s Day
Sometimes as a teacher it’s just nice to have some ready-to-print, low-prep activities to get us through the days where our students are a little more…ummm…”energized”. Valentine’s Day is certainly one of those events! I have created a set of easy to use activities that fits the bill. Whether you want a writing prompt, a fun “word work” activity, an open-ended math task, or several other printables, I’ve put together a set for you to use in those crazy days! See what you think–and you can even access it digitally!
I hope you and your students have a GREAT Valentine’s Day this year celebrating our friendship and caring toward each other!
Check below for even more links to all sorts of Valentine fun!
Here is a link to the differentiated Valentine’s Multiplication games.
Click the image below to check out the “We Love to Read” bulletin board project!
Want to check out the Project Based Learning Task? Click below!
Looking for Valentine’s Day word problems? Click the link below–and it’s been updated to include digital access!
Want to get the games, word problems AND the low-prep activities all bundled together? Click below or RIGHT HERE!
