Top Valentine's Day Activities for Students

I know that it is after the fact, but these are some the Valentine's Activities that we did this year.

1.  Using kind words demonstration - Have 2 hearts cut out.  Use one heart to demonstrate how mean words make our hearts feeling like they are breaking.  Even if you start saying kind things, no matter how much we straighten the hearts, they will not go back to normal.  This is why we need to use kind words all the time.  The other heart makes a great comparison to really hit the lesson home.  I have some really mean students.  This lesson was geared for them.

2.  Kind Message Hearts - I made a heart for every student.  We passed them around the room. Students had to write a nice message for the person on the heart.  I told them that if there was anything mean, no one would get to see their heart.  I made sure to read them all carefully.  There were only kind things.  

I think my favorite was written by the meanest girl in the class.  I know she can't stand one of the boys.  Her message started with, "I like how you...."  She couldn't think of anything nice, so she erased her sentence start and put "You can read."  To her credit, she did spend 5 minutes really thinking about her response.  It was better than nothing at all.

3.  Conversation Hearts Science Experiment - I found a nice, free science experiment on Teachers Pay Teachers.  As a class, we did a sink/float prediction and checked the results.  Then, in small groups, we did an observation about what would happen to the candy hearts in vinegar, 7-Up, and water.  They loved this.

4.  Valentine's Day Writing for Author's Purpose - I already wrote here about this activity in detail. My students got really into their writing.  Their stories were very well written.  If you are interested, check out the activity in detail here.

I need to find something new to do for math.  We did a review of addition and subtraction on Valentine's paper.  It was nice but not as fun as the rest of the activities.  At least while they worked on this, I got to pull students for their small groups to complete the science experiment.

My students thought these activities were like our Fun Friday except that everyone got to participate. Once again, it was "The best day ever!"