Valentine's Day Games and Activities

Ideas, Worksheets, and Websites for Teachers of Grades 3-8

Jan 15, 2009

Upper elementary and middle school students can enjoy Valentine's Day without eating candy. Teachers can add pizazz to their lesson plans with these fun resources.

Classroom Valentine's Day parties are fun, because students get to pass out their valentines, eat candy, and socialize. For classes that do not have parties, teachers can still offer interesting activities to recognize Valentine's Day.

Create Valentine's Day Centers for Different Activities

Valentine's Day is a social day. Students trade Valentines in elementary school and decorate friends' lockers in middle school. It is best to have centers where students can be together in small pairs or groups and work together while getting a chance to enjoy time together.

Valentine's Day Activities for Centers

One easy center should be circle games. Teachers can have a collection of games written on cards, and kids pull out the cards and play the games. They should have:

Once the centers are determined, teachers should push the desks out of the way and make the room fun and inviting. Having a decorating center will help get the room looking fabulous without a lot of teacher labor.

Create a Heart Path for Classroom for Valentine's Day Centers

Moving the desks out of the way and creating a Valentine's Day activity centers will make the classroom seem special from the moment a student walks in the door.

Even older students will enjoy the change of pace that a new classroom arrangement offers. The winter and indoor recess gets tiresome, so even older students are often grateful for little doses of change that a new classroom arrangement offers.

Group Games for Valentine's Day

In a center, students will be sitting in a group. These two activities are good for five or more students.

Everyone looks as serious as possible. They stretch out their arms (like zombies), and one person starts smiling and making silly faces at another person, concentrating on just that person. When the other person catches the grin by laughing or smiling, that person puts his or her arms down.

Students have one minute to list things they love, and they have to use the entire minute. When they run out of listing things, the rest of the group sits silently waiting for the minute to be up. Students love this game.

Games for Pairs

Students each have 10 notecards. On the notecards, they write 10 things they love. They mix up the cards, and each pulls one out (so they might have two of their own, two of the other person's, or one of each). Then each partner has to choose which of the two cards the other person is most likely to "love" most - an mp3 player, or going to Disneyland? A new cell phone, or summer vacation? Students love this game, and if previous classes leave their cards, there is a huge collection for students to play with.

Each student has 16 notecards and a box of crayons, and they draw (as similarly as possible) hearts or other Valentine's Day images on the cards. Then they play memory, trying to match as many cards as possible while only flipping over two at a time.

Worksheets and Funsheets

As always, SchoolandFamily has great printable resources for teachers. Their Valentine's Day library is second to none, and includes Their Valselection includes:

Accessing the worksheets is very simple, and their wonderful pdf files are ready for teachers to download, print, and use for free.

Decorating Centers

For teachers who are willing to give students a chance to be artistic, using colored chalk, colored paper, stencils and masking tape can make a room beautiful. Decorating for the classroom and hallway might take students out of the center, but they will get a chance to use their artistic talents and brighten everyone's Valentine's Day with color and good intentions.

Students may benefit more from working and playing together than they will from eating sugar and hanging out with friends, and parents will appreciate knowing that the day was memorable and full of school-related activities.

The copyright of the article Valentine's Day Games and Activities in Curricula/Lesson Plans is owned by Alex Sharp. Permission to republish Valentine's Day Games and Activities in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Jan 27, 2009 11:02 AM

erintm :

Thanks so much for recommending SchoolFamily.com! If your users have any suggestions for worksheet categories, we are happy to hear and oblige :) Just email us through our contact page (find at bottom of site).
Erin