Teaching Fourth: Valentine's Day Ideas for Upper Grades

Valentine's Day can be a lot of fun, even for upper elementary students. I know that my fourth graders love exchanging cards and candy. Surprisingly, this day can be one of the most exciting days for students during the year. To help keep students focused, here are a few fun activities that your students will enjoy on Valentine's Day or anytime during February that will also keep them focused and learning. Find fun and simple ideas, activities, and a great bulletin board idea below.

Valentine Cities in U.S.

My students had so much fun with this map activity. We have large maps mounted in our hallways, and students love stopping and looking at them. I wanted to provide my students with a fun activity that would give them an opportunity to use their map skills and to use the large maps that they love. Working in groups, students were given 3 or 4 specific states to research and find cities with names associated with Valentine's Day. Then they visited this website to find cities in their assigned states. Next, on heart sticky notes they wrote the name of the city and state. They then searched for each city on google maps to find the exact location of the city. Finally, they took each heart label and attached it to our large U.S. map located in our hall. This was an enjoyable activity that gave students a chance to improve their map skills.

Chocolate Candy Descriptive Writing Activity

I have used this writing activity in my class for several years, and, unfortunately, I am uncertain where I originally found this idea. It is great to use around Valentine's Day. Give each child a Chocolate foil-wrapped teardrop candy (you know the popular brand) and instruct the students to not touch and only look and to imagine that he/she has never seen this object before. Students will then "jot notes." On a piece of paper jot details, words, or phrases to describe how this object looks: ex. size, shape, color, etc.

Next, have the students pick up the object and feel, but do not open. Now write descriptive words and phrases that would explain how this object feels.

Then have students to listen closely as they open up the object. Write words and phrases to explain and describe the sound that is made.

Finally, it is time to taste the object and write how this object not only tastes, but how it feels in their mouths.

On another piece of paper, have students use their jot notes to complete a paragraph or essay to describe this object. Once finished, let students share their descriptive essays. For a fun twist, give students a variety of flavors of this candy (almond, cookies and cream, caramel, etc.). After sharing the essays, students could guess which flavor of this chocolate candy was being described.

Other Language Arts Activities

I have always been amazed at how excited students become on Valentine's Day. Students love giving cards on this fun day. Keeping students focused, however, can be somewhat problematic. One way I try to squeeze in some curriculum on this crazy-fun day is to use printables from my February No Prep Grammar Packet. Students love these fun pages, and I love how students are still learning. Students review grammar/language arts skills such as homophones, plural nouns, suffixes, commas, and much more while completing fun puzzle pages, coloring pages, etc. This is a great packet to settle students back down after a busy morning of passing out cards and eating Valentine snacks.

February Headers for Google Classroom

Dress up your digital classroom the entire month of February with these fun and colorful Valentine Headers that are sized to fit perfectly in Google Classroom™. These headers will also work in Google Forms™ as well. These colorful headers will create a fun virtual space for your students.

Heart Reading Response Flipbook

Use these simple heart flipbooks to get your students excited about reading this February. After reading a fiction or nonfiction book, students use these Heart Reading Response Flipbooks to tell about what they have read. Three versions of flipbooks are included. Students may write about character, setting, problem, or solution. In a second choice for fiction students may write about the beginning, middle, and end of the book, or choose the nonfiction version for students to write about details from a nonfiction selection. After students complete the heart flipbooks, put them together to create a beautiful bulletin board display. The letters and truck for this display are also included in the packet.