Hi friends! I'm back to share a bunch of new valentine themed activities we've been exploring in our classroom. There's a freebie too so make sure you grab it before you go!
1. VALENTINE CHART & SENTENCES
I love adding these themed word charts to my whiteboard centre to spark new writing. Students can draw and label their pictures or draw a picture and write a sentence about it! If you have any ELL students in your class it can be a good opportunity to just sit with them and introduce the vocabulary to them.
Before I left on Friday, I switched the centre up a little bit by adding in these simple sentence strips so the students have simple sentences to practice reading and writing as well.
This chart, the simple sentence strips and all the printables in this post (except for the freebies of course) can all be found in my "Kindergarten Valentines Activities" pack. If you are interested, you can click here or on the image below to check it out:
2. VALENTINE LETTER
Another literacy centre we had out this week was this letter making centre! Students were invited to tear construction paper with their hands (great fine motor work!) and glue the pieces on to cover the heart. Then they could choose to copy (my example) or trace:
Dear _______________,
I love you to pieces
From, _______________
My kids enjoyed making these and made them for their family members and friends in their class!
3. VALENTINE PRINTING
Almost all of my kiddos need at least some practice with letter and number formation, so I kept these printing sheets but switched some of it up. I kept the number formation ones the same but added a shape and shape word tracing page.
I also put out these 2 sight word sheets to practice letter formation and identifying sight words.
4. VALENTINE ADDITION
A next step for many of my kids is addition in math so I made up this activity for the students to practice with at centre time. The kids are invited to pick a number sentence and read it, make it and answer it in the corresponding boxes. I set them out with some foam heart stickers, pom poms and wooden numbers. The wooden numbers are from Michaels! I also included some 3 number addition sentences for to challenge my high kids.
5. VALENTINE PATTERNING
I saw these self-inking heart shaped stamps at Dollarama and knew I had to grab them. They are SO cute and so many of my kids are obsessed with Frozen so I knew they would be a hit.
Then I remembered @kinderpie123 sharing a great patterning printable and knew it would be the perfect thing to use these stamps with! You can see her original one here.
I love that the first two are closed (as in they must make an AB and an ABC pattern) but the last line is open and they can make any pattern they want. I have a group that really needs practice with identifying the core and naming patterns so I'm using this as a small group activity for that group and it's open to the rest of the class as well as a centre.
You can grab this FREE printable by clicking here or on the image below:
6. VALENTINE SENSORY BIN
I made this activity this week since my kiddos need practice with stretching, hearing and recording sounds in words. The kids are asked to pick a heart card, say the word on the card, say the word slowly and write the three sounds they hear. I wrote the word on the back of the hearts with a black Sharpie so they could flip it over and self-check after they tried stretching on their own.
These heart cards and the recording sheet is also included in my "Kindergarten Valentine's Day Activities" pack.
7. VALENTINE POKEY PIN
My co-worker introduced me to this push pin activity (she gave me one of a snowflake to try) and my kids loved it so when the snowflake ran out, I made some valentine themed ones! I added the words on the bottom for some extra spelling practice.
The sheets are cut in half and stapled on red and pink construction paper. Then they take the push pin and push in on each dash/dot. When they are done, they peel the paper off to reveal their word and picture! The kids have been loving this and I love how it encourages concentration, perseverance and fine motor development! I put these on the carpet, but you could also put them on cork sheets or towels to prevent your tables from getting scratched!
8. VALENTINE PATTERNING
In addition to these open-ended heart wand and bead patterning invitation and patterning with valentine loose parts, I also set out these valentine themed pattern strips for the kids to practice extending and naming patterns. I used them in guided groups first and then set them out for everyone to try. Again these are included in my valentine activity pack that I mentioned at the top of this post.
9. BIG BUDDIES
We started big buddies a few weeks ago and my kids are OBSESSED. They love seeing their buddies every week and doing activities with them. On the first day, I had them fill out these "Getting To Know My Buddy/Buddies" sheet (some kids have 2 big buddies since there are 26 Grade 5's and we only have 15 students) so the buddies could get to know each other!
The questions on the sheet are:
What is your name?
How old are you?
What is your favourite colour?
What is your favourite food?
What is your favourite thing to do?
I ran around and took pictures of the kids with their buddies so I could put pictures up with their get to know you sheets. The 5's are such a nice group and my kids are so lucky to have these great role models visiting our class every week!
So far we did reading from book boxes the second week and a writing activity with them this week. If you have any good, easy buddy activities please let me know!
You can grab the printable in the photo by clicking here or on the image below:
That's it from me this week!
I hope you can use some of these ideas & that you have a great weekend!
- Yukari
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