5 Valentine’s Day Activities for Upper Elementary Students

Valentine’s Day is full of sugar and spice and everything nice. It is a guarantee that your kiddos will be excited for this fun filled February day. As teachers we know how to embrace the chaos while sprinkling in those important learning opportunities. These Valentine’s Day activities are a perfect way to fill your day with Valentine’s Day learning  fun.

The suspense for Valentine’s Day in your classroom is all too real. Your students will have already carefully picked out their cards for their friends and the anticipation for the card exchange is sure to be felt in the air.  What’s going to be difficult is focusing all those eager minds on the learning objective of the day.  You probably know by now that I approach holidays with a motto: “Embrace it and use it to increase engagement.”  

With this motto in mind, here’s some fun Valentine’s Day activities your students will love.

No Prep Valentine’s Day Activities Bundle

Before Valentine’s Day, or any classroom holiday, there is lots to be done.  Being able to fill your lesson plans with some engaging activities that don’t require a lot of extra prep time is the perfect answer for a busy teacher.  Let’s take a peek to see how these no prep Valentine’s Day activities will have your students working with vocabulary words and spelling in a fun and engaging way.

1. Valentine’s Day Word Scramble

Kick the day off with some focused fun and this Valentine’s Day word scramble.  After all, fighting against the holiday never seems to be successful. 

This word scramble is a great morning work activity that will have your students working on spelling and vocabulary.  Students can complete this fun brain puzzle independently or with a partner.  Have them exercise those brains while they unscramble letters to create extra special Valentine’s words like candy, pink, and envelope. Challenge them to see how many words they can unscramble on their own.  Then, provide some hints for any unknown words.  Don’t worry, the answer key is provided too! 

After all the words are unscrambled, students can use them to reveal a special message at the bottom of the page.  And no worries . . . you don’t have to use this in the morning.  It’s a great addition any time of the day!

2. Valentine’s Day Word Search

Who doesn’t love a good word search?  But don’t be fooled by this popular activity into thinking it doesn’t belong in the classroom.  A word search is a great way to introduce new vocabulary and spelling patterns.  It’s a great word work activity that feels a lot less like work and a lot more like fun.  The perfect activity for a classroom holiday!

Feel like you need to ramp up the rigor?  Once students complete the word search have them turn the paper over and challenge them to write a story using as many of the words from the word search as possible.  This not only introduces the vocabulary but also gives them an immediate opportunity to put those words into practice.

3. Secret Valentine Message

Have your class put on their detective hats to complete this fun activity. Your students will use the secret code to decode the Valentine’s Day words.

This activity reinforces many words from the previous puzzles and gives students the next step of writing the words.  After reviewing the words in three different activities, they will be on their way to mastering these sweet words.

Surprise them with a Valentine’s Day spelling test.  Instead of their “normal” spelling words, use words from these three Valentine’s Day activities.  It is sure to be a spelling test they won’t soon forget.

4. Not Just Coloring Pages

Coloring has some therapeutic values that help to calm people of all ages.  Tap into that with these Valentine’s Day coloring pages.  Enjoy some downtime from that sugar high and have students complete one or both of the coloring pages.  But don’t stop there!  Encourage them to turn the paper over and write a special Valentine’s Day note on the back.  This makes a special Valentine that your students will love to share with their family, friends or another teacher.  If you’re feeling extra brave, give them some sequins and glitter to decorate with. 

5. Pennant Banner

This Valentine’s Day activities pack also includes a mini pennant banner that you can use in so many ways! 

1. Create and use as some holiday decor in your classroom.
2. Let students create their own banner to decorate the front of their desk.
3. Create a Valentine’s Day acrostic poem by using each letter of the banner as the starting letter for their poem. Students can write their acrostic poem word inside each pennant.

What Are You Waiting For?

You can find all of these No Prep Valentine’s Day Activities in the Appletastic Learning store.  Your students will love them and you are sure to make lots of memories while covering important skills along the way. 

Need Valentine’s Day activities for other content areas?

So now you are covered with word work activities and some writing extension activities too.  But if you are still looking for some fun and engaging academic activities for your lesson plans then make sure to check these out too!

1. Candy Themed Reading Unit

This Candy Themed Reading Unit is a popular packet which includes a reading passage with comprehension questions, a fact and opinion game, an idiom memory game, practice with text structure and much more.

2. Valentine’s Day Math and Language Arts Mystery

Your students are going to LOVE this Valentine’s Day mystery.  Even the most reluctant of learners will love trying to solve The Case of the Missing Valentine Bags.  Since we all know that a day like Valentine’s Day isn’t the best day to introduce a lot of new skills and concepts, use it to review instead.

3. Valentine’s Day Project Based Learning

Check out this blog post to find out all about using Project Based Learning in your classroom this Valentine’s Day.  It will walk you through everything you need to know to engage your kids on this special day.

Save these Valentine’s Day Activities

Just pin this to your favorite classroom Pinterest board so you save these fun Valentine’s Day activities for your students.