Valentine's Day Activities, Crafts {and Freebie}

Yum! Are you craving the little Valentine's Day candies yet? I sure am....but then again, I'm always craving candy!

I've been scouring Pinterest and the web getting my students in gear for Valentine's Day!  And of course...with any holiday, I like to include a freebie (my way of saying "thank you" to you!)

1. Ultimate Figurative Language Pack for Upper Level Students

Absolutely perfect for targeting figurative language with those middle school and high school students! If you didn't see my blog post on it already, click HERE. 

2. Sweet Synonyms and Antonyms Leveled Pack

For only $2, you receive 120 words divided into 2 Levels (one for grades K-2, one for grades 3-5). 

3. Sweet Homophone Freebie

Here is my holiday freebie that I am providing you. 36 Homophones with 2 levels of difficulty all for free! One shopper left feedback that she was placing little Valentine stickers on the backs of these cards for some extra glitter. I love that idea!

 

 

For the crafties out there, here are a few easy, no-fuss crafts I know you'll enjoy.

 

4. Feelings Heart

This super simple craft requires supplies that you already have.

What you'll need:

*Construction paper

*Feeling Word Labels (found HERE)

*pencil

*(I also printed out a list of feeling words for reference found HERE)

 Have students write and think of as many feeling words as possible. Use them in a sentence and have them tell of a time they felt this feeling. Say "Be my valentine" using different tones of feelings to work on tone of voice.
Funny moment: Today when we were working on these, one "feeling" word that came up was "frustrated." My student teacher asked if anyone had ever heard that word before. One student yelled out "Yes, I hear it ALL THE TIME at my house. My mom loves that word!" I had to supress a giggle :-)

 

Then, as an added bonus....I found these cute self-stampers at the dollar store for students to decorate their "feeling hearts!"

 



 

 

 

 



5. Using Paint Cards to make Word Ladders
You already know that I love paint cards. If not, see my post HERE.

 

Source: media-cache1.pinterest.com via Libby on Pinterest

This idea from pinterest is fun and easy. Just grab a heart punch and some paint cards and you can create your own heart strand. We're using them to make Word Ladders.

Have you heard of these? Word ladders are a great way to work on phonological awareness, vocabulary, reading and spelling all at the same time.
They work like this: Take a word and manipulate it by changing the meaning and letters.
Example:
hot
Change the first letter "a piece of land-Dad parks the car in the parking ___" lot
to allow-The teacher ___ me lead the song. let
an animal that is taken care of by people: pet
change the vowel-a cherry seed: pit
pork comes from this animal: pig
change the first letter-to make a hole in the ground: dig
a pet that barks: dog
What compound word do the first and last words make? hotdog!

For this heart-chain craft, we are going to be manipulating words and then writing them on our hearts to make a heart chain. Challenge your students by having them give directions to others on how to manipulate the words!

Here's one that a student made today:
mom, mop, top, tap

 

 

 

Yay! We started putting up our Valentine Bulletin today!

 

 



I hope you found some easy (and cheap) Valentine's Day inspiration! What are you doing in your classes?