Curriculum | Featured | February
February is one of the busiest months when it comes to teaching. There are a lot of holidays jam-packed into an already short month. It can feel like an all-out sprint to the finish, but don't forget to slow down and celebrate the month of love with your students. To help you do just that (while still learning along the way), check out these 8 Valentine's Day ideas for kindergarten.
#1. Valentine's Day Sight Word Craft
Up first on the list of Valentine's Day ideas for kindergarten is an adorable DIY “love letter” sight word craft freebie that your students will have a blast making. Every kid loves to get mail, right? Each student will have their own envelope full of sight word “love notes” to help them practice their sight word recognition.
All you need for this craft is construction paper, envelopes, scissors, glue sticks, pencils, and the “Sight Words I Know” freebie. It's sight word practice, fine motor skills, creativity, and Valentine fun all wrapped up into one.
#2. February Boom Cards
To keep your little learners engaged and constantly reviewing skills they've learned, add Valentine's Day digital, interactive Boom cards to your lesson plans. There are 8 decks of math and literacy games to help your students practice skills such as:
- onset and rime
- simple CVC sentences
- CVC missing sounds
- CVC word building
- addition to 10
- subtraction within 10
- counting on within 30
- number order to 20
#3. Candy Heart Addition and Subtraction
The next Valentine's Day idea for kindergarten will help your mini-mathematicians work on addition and subtraction skills. To prep this activity, simply write addition and subtraction equations on sticky notes or notecards. Have your students draw an equation one at a time. They'll model and solve the problem with candy hearts (or mini erasers, counters, etc).
Valentine's Day Story Problems
Another idea for practicing addition and subtraction is to draw a ten-frame or number line on a pink or red party plate. Students will solve addition and subtraction story problems using candy hearts on the plate. This is a great way to practice different problem-solving strategies.
#4. February No Prep Activities
Remember how I said February can feel like a sprint to the finish? Therefore, there's not a lot of extra time to prep and grade. Insert…NO PREP Valentine's Day activities for kindergarten! Plus, to make these 37 math and literacy activities even more lovable, your students can complete them using colorful bingo dabbers, a kindergarten favorite.
These are perfect to add to morning work, early finisher tubs, centers, or in a special sub tub for those unexpected days out of the classroom.
#5. Rhyming Hearts
Next on the list of Valentines's Day ideas for kindergarten is one that will focus on the oh so important skill of rhyming. To get this activity ready for your students, write a rhyming word on each half of a heart cutout. Cut the hearts in half and mix them up. Students will then find rhyming word pairs and match the hearts together. To add an extra flair of fun, cut the hearts with fun patterned scissors.
#6. Valentine's Day Flip and Solve
This next Valentine's Day learning idea for kindergarten is super versatile and easy to implement in your classroom. Using foam hearts, write a skill or problem on one side. You can write CVC words, rhyming words, letters, teen numbers, addition or subtraction problems, etc. Lay out the foam hearts face down. On the top side of the heart, place either 1, 2, or 3 candy hearts.
Students will choose a heart, flip it over, and read the word or solve the problem. If they get it correct, they get to keep the candy hearts. If they don't get it correct, the heart goes back into the pile. The student with the most candy hearts at the end of the game wins.
#7. Valentine Grab Bag
By February, students are decoding and reading more and more CVC words. As they gain confidence with CVC words, they begin working with word families and learning the patterns in words. This Valentine's Day idea for kindergarten is the perfect word work game.
Using brown or white paper bags, write a word family on the front of each bag. Then, write different CVC words in these word families on die-cut hearts or foam hearts. The students will draw a heart, read the word, and determine which word family it belongs to and place it in the corresponding bag.
Valentine Grab Bag Variations
There are several variations of this game that you can play. You can write rhyming words on the bags and have students place the hearts in the bag that rhymes with their word. You can also write numbers on the bags and equations on the hearts. The students will solve the equation and place it in the bag that matches the sum or difference.
To add a level of challenge to this game, students can write their words or equations on a whiteboard after finding the corresponding bag.
#8. Valentine's Day Party Snack
The final Valentine's Day idea for kindergarten is a delicious and tasty Valentine's Day snack mix. Students love to help make this snack mix because it represents all of the different ingredients coming together to make something special. This ties in the theme of friendship, kindness, and how each student plays a special part in the classroom.
You can make this snack mix together as a class or prep it and portion it out in baggies or cups with the printable poem freebie attached. However you make it, your class will be bursting with love and kindness.
I can't wait to hear which Valentine's Day ideas for kindergarten are a hit in your classroom. Leave a comment below and share with me!
