As February approaches, it's time to start planning Valentine's activities suitable for our 4-5 students. In this post, I've gathered insights and ideas from other upper elementary teachers, sharing how they incorporate Valentine's literacy and math activities in their classrooms.
Whether you're a fan of heartwarming stories or eager to explore candy heart math, this blog post has you covered.
So, get ready to embrace the sweetness of February with these fun and heartwarming activities for 4th and 5th-grade students to enjoy!
Table of Contents
Write a Friendly Letter to Someone Special
Let kids get to spread love and kindness through writing! I designed this friendly letter template for students to write a kindness letter to someone special at school.
I even included some cute Valentine's cards for the kids to color and give along with their letters. It's a fantastic way to blend writing skills with the spirit of Valentine's Day. Your students will practice their writing and experience the joy of sharing love with others.
Write What You Know By Heart? on Heart Printable
Add a creative twist to the famous saying, “What do you know by heart?” I designed a template to combine figurative language and Valentine's fun.
Students can write down one thing they know by memory on a lovely heart-shaped craft. The best part? These adorable Valentine's hearts can double as decorations for your classroom or a beautiful addition to your classroom door.
It's a creative way to engage your students in expressing something meaningful while adding a touch of love to your learning space.
Read Stories with a Friendship Theme
Marissa from Creative Classroom Core strongly believes Valentine's activities are an excellent opportunity to spread extra love and kindness in the classroom.
Sharing short stories with themes of love can be a fun way to celebrate this special day and help create an atmosphere of fun and excitement in your classroom.
These classic tales of friendship, love, and kindness help to remind us of what matters during this memorable holiday.
For a complete list of engaging short stories to share with your learners this February, check out the Creative Classroom Core blog (and grab some fun Valentine's Day freebies, too!)
Help Students Fall in Love with Reading Again
As a reading specialist, Carla from Comprehension Connection has worked for years with kids who struggle and hate reading, so throughout her career, building a love of literacy has been a top priority.
To achieve this mission, she's used a few strategies :
- She learns reader preferences and interests for book recommendations. Her post about book talks includes several teaching activity ideas and a few book talk freebies. These book talks get kids interested in what others are reading.
- She involves parents through schoolwide parental involvement activities like We Love Literacy Month. Her school's Read, Read, and Read S'more Night was one of the best-attended events in school history. These events help parents learn how to get books in their kids' hands.
- This post includes eight more strategies for building a love of literacy that is perfect to have as an option for your Valentine's activities.
Let's face it. You need loads of ideas to use from September to May, and Carla at Comprehension Connection loves sharing them.
Explore the History of Valentine's Symbols
Chrissy from Buzzing with Ms. B loves integrating fun, engaging topics into reading & writing instruction!
Learning about the symbols we use to represent holidays is one fun way to help students learn about research while participating in Valentine's Day!
When you're teaching students basic research skills, including gathering information from a source, recording it on a graphic organizer, and turning that into some presentation, Chrissy consistently differentiates in more than one way to meet students' needs.
One way to do this is by finding a text at an appropriate level, giving different levels of structure with graphic organizers, and allowing students to create different kinds of products to represent their learning!
It might sound like a tall order, but you can get everything you need to differentiate and teach fun Valentine's Day concepts with these Valentine's Day Reading Projects!
Students can learn about Cupid, hearts, and flowers and why we use them to represent Valentine's Day. Each passage is written at a different level to help you differentiate, plus the projects are varied, too! Grab them here!
Candy Heart Valentine's Activities
As Valentine's Day nears, Mandy Neal from Teaching With Simplicity provides Valentine's activities for integrating candy heart math activities into classes for 3rd to 5th graders.
The blog post, 9 Easy Candy Heart Math Activities, offers candy heart-centered math activities like working with fractions, graphing, area, perimeter, and estimation.
The aim is to make math lessons more engaging and fun for students during the Valentine's season.
Go on a Valentine's Fraction Scavenger Hunt
With the right tools, February can be a fantastic academically-active month for your upper elementary students. Of course, coming off of winter break followed by Valentine's Day and the thought of spring break just around the corner means your kiddos might be a bit antsy!
Thankfully, Tammy at The Owl Teacher knows just how to keep students engaged while promoting a love for learning: treat 'em to a gaggle of games that are sure to hold their attention long enough for you to sneak some learning in, such as through puzzles, review tic-tac-toe, tailored card games (like the FREEBIE here!), board games, and even homemade fraction dice.
Or, if you're looking for a math game with a few more X's and O's, her Valentine's Day Unlike Fractions Scavenger Hunt is an excellent way to build your students' love for learning while taking advantage of their excitement for the holiday.
It's perfect for math centers, an engaging math activity, or even as independent work. Regardless of how you engage your kiddos, these games will foster a love for learning in your elementary classroom.
Key Takeaways
In wrapping up this blog post, I hope you've discovered many ideas to make February a standout month in your upper elementary classroom. From heartwarming stories that spread love to innovative literacy strategies that build a lifelong passion for reading, there's something for everyone.
Whether exploring Valentine's Day symbols or turning candy hearts into math adventures, these activities will keep your students excited and engaged. So, go ahead and embrace the love, the learning, and the joy that February brings to your classroom.
