Valentine’s Day activities come at the perfect time. It’s early February, and if you live in the Northern Hemisphere you may still be in the depths of winter. Or perhaps spring starts to make an appearance at this time of year but it’s still mucky and damp out. Either way, any excuse for a celebration is a very good thing!
I’ve rounded up five great ideas to help you celebrate Valentine’s Day. You’ll find activities for math and literacy to help you celebrate Valentine’s Day all week long! See this post for more Valentine’s Day ideas.
valentine’s day activities with heart candy
Those little heart-shaped candies that are in stores this time of year are fun and so perfect for celebrating this ‘love’-ly holiday!
Valentine’s Day Math Activities
Skipping Heart Beats
Candy hearts make it fun to practice skip counting!
In this game, each candy color stands for a different number that would be used for skip counting, such as 1, 2, 5, etc.
Give each student a box of candy hearts. Start out by having them find all of the orange hearts which will represent the number 1. Next they will record the total.
The various colors will each stand for a different number, so as students sort out the colors they will be skip counting from one up to two hundred if you use all the colors.
Here’s a handy free worksheet that will make this an easy and fun game to play. It can be played multiple times since each box of hearts will have different numbers of each color.
Candy Heart Graphing
Candy hearts are perfect for doing a graphing activity.
First, have students sort out boxes of hearts by color and then record the numbers of each. Next they can set up a bar graph to show their tallies. Instead of a bar graph, you could have students make a pictograph by drawing the hearts. Challenge them by asking them to color their hearts based on the number. For example, if there are 15 green hearts they could have each drawn heart count as 5 candy hearts so they would draw three hearts on their graph.
Valentine’s Day Literacy Ideas
I Heart Contractions
Use the phrases on the candy hearts to study contractions! You’ll need a big heart shape cut out of poster board or construction paper, and some glue or glue sticks.
Give students boxes of the hearts and let them dump them out on their desks. First, have them find all the examples of contractions, such as “You’re Mine” and “It’s Love.” Then challenge the students to say the phrases correctly without using the contractions. Have them come up and glue their contraction hearts onto the heart-shaped cutout. After they’ve found all the contractions, review them with the class by having them say the phrases with and without the contractions.
I Heart Books
This is a fun activity where students will write valentines to their favorite book!
Start by drawing a double heart (connected at their tops) and making a copy for each student. Or click on the image below to download the template. Copying on pink or red paper would be a nice touch!
Ask your students to think about a book that they love. Then they’ll illustrate the top heart with drawings that represent their book. On the inside of the card, they can write why they chose that book to be deserving of a Valentine! When they’re done, you can display them around the room or have students read them to the rest of the class.
Math and Literacy Combination Resources
Valentine’s Day Math and Literacy Centers
If you’re looking for a mix of math and literacy activities that you can use for Valentine’s Day, you might be interested in this resource.
This varied and differentiated pack of Valentine’s Day activities is full of interesting and challenging literacy and math activities to keep your students engaged and thinking! The pack offers 14 activities in total, including games, centers and worksheets.
You’ll find math board games, pattern and place value work, reading comprehension and sequencing activities and a syllable sort, along with many other engaging math and literacy activities.
Last but not least, you may like this free resource. It’s a Valentine-themed Monster Math resource, featuring odd and even numbers. I hope you find it useful! Just click on the image below to check it out in my free resource library!
There are other Valentine’s Day resources in my store as well. Just click on the images below to check them out!
Do you have any fun Valentine’s Day activities that your students love? Please share!
