UPDATE 1/26/2021 – Here is my up-to-date Wakelet collection of Valentine’s Day resources.
Looking for ways to build on the anticipation and excitement your students have for Valentine’s Day? Here are some of the activities I’ve recommended in past years.
- It’s Like a Box of Chocolates, But Not as Caloric – Last year’s Valentine resource post with scads of links including Sudoku and S.C.A.M.P.E.R.
- Would You Rather Be My Valentine or Do a Few Math Problems? – A fun twist on the Would You Rather game that requires justification for each answer using math.
- QR Code Classroom Coupons – Fun to put into student Valentines.
- Valentine Heart Painting – Why wait for Valentine’s Day? These works of art would look great any time of year!
I’m always looking for new ideas, though. I ran across a couple from fellow bloggers that were posted last year around this time.
Christy at Creative Classroom Tools has these great forced association activities called, “A Very Venn Valentine’s.” I’m totally using these (free download on TPT!) this year!
Minds in Bloom offers some fun “Would You Rather” questions of the non-mathematical variety.
Valentine’s Day Sudoku – I have some other links to online and printable sudoku puzzles here, but these free printables are particularly well-suited for Kinder and 1st graders.
Hopscotch Hearts – I thought it would be fun for my students to use Hopscotch (the iPad coding app) to make something Valentine-y, and they have been working on their own ideas on and off for a couple of weeks. (You can see what a few of my 2nd graders have done so far here – most of them haven’t finished, yet.) Then I saw a tweet from Hopscotch about a new tutorial they just posted to make a “Pixel Art Heart.” My 3rd graders tried it out yesterday and really liked it. A few of them finished the code and then started modifying it to make the heart bigger or smaller as well as different colors. A couple of other students messed up on the code and I loved watching their peers working with them to try to figure out where they went wrong. (Because I had absolutely no idea!)
And finally, how about geeking up your day? Check out these awesome paper circuit cards made by 7th graders! (You can find Chibitronics LED circuit stickers online, or you can use surface-mount LED’s. Copper tape and coin cell batteries will help you make the circuits.) For instructions on making greeting cards, visit this post. (UPDATE 2/8/16: Here is a link to the Valentine Cards our Maker Club made this year.)
