Are you a new teacher looking for some Valentine’s Day literacy center activities for kindergarten or first grade? Or a teacher looking for some Valentine’s literacy activities to engage your struggling students? Or a seasoned teacher looking for some new Valentine’s activities to keep things fresh and fun? Keep reading and let’s see!
Valentine’s Day Literacy Center Activities for Kindergarten and First Grade
February is an exciting month for students because they get so excited about Valentine’s Day. If you’ve followed my blog, you might have read my past post where I talk about how much I loved Valentine’s Day as a student. So, I understand their excitement. Read that blog post HERE.
Last night I was reading on The Virtual Vine, my old website, my first memories of Valentine’s Day at school. In 3rd grade, we covered shoeboxes in white bulletin board paper and decorated them with handmade and doily red and pink hearts. We cut a slit in the top for the Valentine cards we’d be receiving to be dropped in and then we took home our class list of names to address our Valentine’s card. And we addressed them. Not our parents. We were excited to pick out just the right card for each person.
Each card had To: and From: written on the back and each envelope had To: written on it. After one session of Valentine’s cards, you weren’t likely to misspell those words again! And we had first-hand knowledge that names began with a capital letter because we had authentically just practiced it 25 times!
The trick is to play into the excitement of Valentine’s Day and use it for learning engagement. Instead of trying to downplay Valentine’s Day, use it as a learning tool. Turn your learning center activities into Valentine’s Day activities. Use candy or mini hearts, etc. as manipulatives. Your students will be excited and want to engage with what they’re doing.
Where do I get Valentine’s Day Math and Literacy Center activities?
You can spend as much or as little time or money as you want creating or purchasing Valentine’s Day center activities. Before computers were the norm, I spent lots of time creating center activities with non-traditional things. I’ll share some activities that can be created and/or purchased below.
Valentine’s Day Literacy Center Activities for Kindergarten and First Grade
- Set up a Valentine’s Card center. Provide the materials for students to make Valentine’s cards for classmates, teachers, faculty, staff, family. Set criteria that it doesn’t turn into just an art center by providing examples and modeling what kind and how much writing you want to see on each card. Without the examples and modeling, it will most likely turn into an art center.
Provide students a class list of names and once they’ve finished their cards, then they can create their Valentine’s mailbox. A shoebox is one example, but there are many ways and simpler ways. Just browse through Pinterest for ideas.
On Valentine’s Day, have the kids put out their mailboxes and deliver their own Valentines. Authentic reading opportunity of classmates’ names.
- Back in the day, I use to purchases LOTS of seasonal and holiday notepads to make matching activities. I tried to get a coordinating larger and smaller size. So, for Valentine’s Day I’d get a large Valentine heart notepad and a smaller Valentine heart notepad, or a cupid or something that would coordinate with it.
Now I see it’s harder to find those. You can purchase something similar called “accents” at Lakeshore Learning, but nothing for Valentine’s Day. On Amazon I found a bulletin board set for Valentine’s Day that would work and it’s so cute! You’d just need to provide some smaller hearts to coordinate which you can purchase on Amazon. Or if you have an Ellison machine, easily cut them out yourself.
Click here to see the hearts on Amazon. And I am not an Amazon affiliate, so I get no money from this.
You would program the patterned hearts with capital letters and then program the smaller plain hearts with lowercase letters. (On some of them you’d have to glue a smaller, solid color heart to the larger heart to program the capital letter so that it would show up. Writing on some of those patterns wouldn’t be ideal.) Laminate and have students match capital to lowercase letters. Create a response sheet and answer key and have them write their answers on the response page then check. This helps to keep them engaged and on task.
If you have an Ellison machine and small and large hearts, you can save yourself some money and do the same thing. If you want to jazz them up, just add some Valentine’s Day stickers to some of them.
FYI: Below are links to examples of die cut note pads. These are so cute and Current is a very old and established company. Again, no affiliate. I get no money if you purchase.
They’re Christmas note pads, but you get the idea of what I’m talking about. Just choose something big and something smaller that coordinates.
https://www.currentcatalog.com/buy/diecut-santa-notepads-619762.html
https://www.currentcatalog.com/buy/santa-notepad-and-pencil-620446.html
*They have some really cute winter ones, too!
3. Use the letters from the activity above, or create more in a similar fashion, and have students sort letters into capital and lowercase. Create a response sheet and answer key and have them write their answers on the response page then check.
4. Use the letters from the activity above, or create more in a similar fashion, and have students sequence the letters. Create a response sheet and answer key and have them write their answers on the response page then check.
5. Write each color word on a red or pink heart or the patterned hearts from Amazon and then cut out a small heart to match the color word. Students will match the correct small color hearts to the color words. Create a response sheet and answer key and have them write their answers on the response page then check.
6. Cut hearts in half and program each half with half of a compound word. Students match the halves together to form compound words. Create a response sheet and answer key and have them write their answers on the response page then check.
You can use these activity types with any skills to create lots of different activities.
7. Fill your Reading Center with Valentine’s Day books. There is a big list of Valentine’s Day books HERE.
If you’ve already seen or done all that or you’d rather not spend your time creating Valentine’s Day literacy centers, here are some other ideas. These resources will give you activities you can use but will save you the time of creating them.
8. Valentine’s Day Letters and Sounds Bingo – Print, laminate, cut out and you’re ready to play! And kids love to play bingo! Especially if you use fun things for the markers like candy or cereal or some other fun kind of game pieces. Just remember, if you’re going to use food, give the kids a sample up front or tell them they’re going to get to eat or take their markers home with them or they’re going to eat at least some of their markers. Happens. every. time! 😀 And make sure whatever you choose easily fits within the squares so as not to frustrate the students.
For this game you can use things like candy conversation hearts, Valentine’s M&Ms, individually foil wrapped candy hearts, heart erasers, red/white/pink buttons, pom poms or painted dry beans (they actually last forever). Just keep an eye out for cool items and you’ll be surprised with what you come up with.
If you don’t have an adult to play with them in the Center, have students that know their letters take turns being the caller. That would be a great motivator for finishing work or good behavior.
9. Valentine’s Day First 25 Sight Words Bingo for Google Slides – Print the calling cards, laminate, cut out and you’re ready to play. You can even skip this step if you want to play without the cards. This game is great for those students who are just beginning to learn their sight words.
10. Valentine’s Day First 100 Sight Words Bingo for Google Slides – Fun way to review and great for party days!
11. Valentine’s Day Second 100 Sight Words Bingo for Google Slides
12. Valentine’s Day ABC Bingo for Google Slides – This product even comes with follow up worksheets!
13. All Things Pink emergent reader – This reader is not Valentine’s Day specific, but I included it and the red reader because pink and red or prevalent Valentine colors. And Valentine’s is the perfect time to focus on the color words pink and red if needed. Also, these emergent readers can be included in Book Boxes and Reading Centers for lots of successful rereading.
If you want to see how I used them in my class, go HERE.
14. All Things Red emergent reader – This is a freebie and not Valentine’s Day specific, but Valentine’s Day is a great time for focusing on the color word red.
More Valentine’s Day Resources
Here are some other Valentine’s Day resources you might also like:
Valentine’s Day Numbers 0 – 20 Bingo Game
Valentine’s Day Number Sense Activities 0 – 20
Valentine’s Day Cards Pocketchart Money Activity and Freebie
Winter Glyphs: Christmas, Winter, Valentine’s Day/Friendship
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Hope you found something that will help to make your Valentine’s Day a little bit sweeter! 😊
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