Celebrating Valentine's Day in the Classroom

Ah, Valentine’s Day. As a single lady, it’s honestly not my favorite. I don’t love having everyone else’s love and romantic happiness thrown all about me on this special day once a year. (Seriously, I’m not bitter…)

I do, however, really enjoy celebrating the day with my students! In my district, this day is one of three on which we are allowed to have a class party. Class parties in my school tend to look a lot like this: lots of cupcakes, juice boxes, and assorted other junk food and lots and lots of trash!

Why I Love It

What I especially like about Valentine’s Day, though, is the sense of giving and caring that it instills in students. Everyone is included. Everyone gets a Valentine from those passing them out. I feel it really helps them to appreciate the joy that can come not just from receiving, but also giving.

Valentine’s Boxes

Historically, we have not created Valentine’s boxes in the classroom. Students are encouraged to work with their families to create their box or bag and I have seen some amazing ones come through the door in my 16 years in the classroom.

One year, about 7 years ago, I felt especially ambitious and spent my evenings for weeks and weeks creating monster Valentine’s Day boxes for every student in both of my classes and for my niece, who was 3 at the time. You can see a picture of my kids that year holding up their monsters. I have never felt more accomplished or creative and loved how they turned out, but have not felt the need to be that enterprising since. In the event of full disclosure, I got the idea from the Giggles Galore blog.

Celebrating

I have a very hard time dealing with chaos. Which might lead you to wonder how in the world have I managed to teach elementary school for almost two decades! What I mean to say is, I prefer CONTROLLED chaos. So, while my students bring in all the treats to share for our party and most bring cards that they just cannot wait to pass out, I like to have a method to go with our madness.

I lay out all the party treats on our small group table. I like to have it very nicely arranged and will call kids up based on their table groups to choose the foods they’d like to consume. Meanwhile, I have 2-3 students passing out their cards at any given time. This helps me to not get overwhelmed and keeps the class from erupting into mayhem.

Meanwhile, we usually have a special Valentine’s Day movie or cartoon playing on the smartboard and if time allows, we may even play Bingo or another fun game themed to the day. However, this is unusual, as we are only allowed to hold our parties for the last 30-45 minutes of the day, so by the time all the cards have been passed out and all the treats consumed, it is usually time to clean up and head home!

Academic Valentines

Looking for a way to add some Valentine’s fun into your learning? I have math task cards and creative writing prompts in both printable and digital formats for you to use with your students!