Fun Classroom Activities
for Valentines Day

Avoiding Hurt Feelings on the Holiday of Love

Fun classroom activities - or should I say potentially fun - can sometimes go awry. That's the case with Valentines Day celebrations. Let's look at it this way...can we design an event that has maximum potential to hurt children's feelings? I think so. This unfair event would have:

Package Valentines right
and see the benefit to
your classroom team

• A card exchange where certain kids can be left out based on petty personal agendas
• Loads of candy with "I like you" message that may - or may not - be shared depending on who's popular at the moment
• A not-so-secret whisper campaign of "who likes who" and "who got what from who" and what that means for "who didn't get anything"

Of course, that's what we already have available to us in Valentines day...a classroom behavior management time bomb wrapped up in red-and-white bows.

For the reasons outlined above, this is a holiday classroom party that absolutely cannot be left to run without teacher oversight. Do you remember any not-so-fun classroom activities from Valentines trauma in elementary school? Let's save our kids from that...and build up our classroom community at the same time.

Valentines Rules for Fun Classroom Activities

As you have seen on the school birthday party page, rules of conduct, firmly enforced, can turn any event into an extremely valuable lesson on politeness, sharing and gratitude. The same is true of your school Valentines party. And, as you'll see, we'll even be able to slip in some points of our spelling lesson plans!

Before the party

Let your students and parents know the ground rules:

• A child must bring one valentine for every other student in the class or none at all
• The cards may have a piece of candy attached (many come this way) but ask that no other candy is brought to school

Setting up the party

Obtain or create Valentines "mailboxes." These may be be as simple as paper lunch sacks with names and a little decoration or something a bit more elaborate such as origami boxes. Let students individualize their mailboxes with anything you have on hand, but limit the time spent on this; mailboxes don't fit into any curriculum of which I'm aware!

Notice that no one gets a special container and no gets to decorate their container in a special way.

Place the mailboxes or containers in alphabetical order around your room. Have the students take care of this organizational step.

The card exchange

As with all classroom parties, this one doesn't start until the last half hour of the day. The first step is for all students to sort their school Valentines party cards into alphabetical order...great skill practice and a touch of curriculum.

A few students at a time go down the alphabetical line of mailboxes and put a card from their alphabetized stack in each, then return to their seats. Other students continue to work on other standards-based work that is Valentines-themed.

The classroom Valentines party

Students bring their mailbox to their desk and, while enjoying a thematic and healthy snack such as strawberries, open up their cards one at a time.

Take some time to roam around during the classroom party because students will want to share Valentines they like. Remind students that Valentines are a special gift and we always say thank you for gifts.

In addition to the healthy snack, each child may have one or two candies from one of the cards; the rest of the candy goes home with them.

Clean up and wrap up

Fun classroom activities can be challenging to arrange in ways that benefit every child in your room and build up your community. But this process, with its equality of sharing and thankfulness, will create a Valentines day that all of your students will savor.

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