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It’s that time of year again! Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. That means it’s time to start thinking about how you’re going to keep your students engaged and learning during those last few days before the holiday. Luckily, I’ve got you covered with four fun and educational Valentine’s Day activities for language arts that your third students will love. So grab some chocolate, and maybe even a box of candy conversation hearts, and let’s get started!
Have your students choose one of the following topics: what they love about their best friend, what they love about their family, or what they love about themselves, and compose a letter to Cupid. Encourage them to be creative with their responses and to use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Once they’re finished, have them decorate their letters with hearts, flowers, or other Valentine’s Day-themed images. For an extra special touch, let them tuck them inside red or pink envelopes.
This game is super simple, doesn’t require anything more than paper and pencil, and can be adapted for any holiday or no holiday at all. Put students in groups so of 3-5. Give them a few minutes to brainstorm as many words as they can think of that are related to a topic, as quietly as possible so other groups don’t hear. Set a timer for a few minutes and reveal the word. In the case of Valentine’s Day let’s use HEARTS as the topic word. Students might brainstorm and record such words as “love,” “Valentine’s,” “kiss,” “artery” “pump,” etc. Once time is up have each group share their list. If another group has the same word on their list, all groups scratch out the duplicate words.
Teams earn a point for each unique word they came up with that no other group had. For added fun, the teacher can preselect a secret bonus word, If any group wrote down the bonus word they earn 10 points. Reveal your secret bonus word at the end of the game before tallying the final scores. This game is also great as a transition time filler for any day of the year. If you ever have trouble thinking of a topic, just use a letter of the alphabet and all words must start with that letter.
I shared this in last week’s blog about Valentine’s Day math activities, but it works great for language arts concepts as well. It’s a great way to review a variety of language arts concepts with your students. Start by prepping a set of Valentine’s Day-themed language arts task cards for whatever concept your students need to review this time of year. Choose from this wide variety of 3rd and 4th-grade level task cards (everything from nouns to figurative language).
Place a few cards around the room in various treat stations. Once students have answered the questions at a certain station and verified that their answers are correct, they can collect that treat. Need ideas for inexpensive treats? How about pencils, heart stickers, school-approved candy, skip-an-assignment pass. You get the idea. If you plan ahead you can also have parents donate treats! Check out this blog for even more ways to use task cards. I’m also giving you a free copy of my alphabetical order Valentine’s Day task cards as my Valentine’s gift to you!
This activity is perfect for getting those creative juices flowing! Have your students brainstorm a list of words associated with Valentine’s Day, such as love, heart, chocolate, roses, etc. Once they have their list, they can choose one word to use as the focus of their acrostic poem. Remind them to be as descriptive as possible in their poems!
Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be all about candy hearts and mushy cards; it can also be an opportunity for some fun and educational language arts activities! Try out these four activities with your third-grade students and watch as they have a blast while learning at the same time.