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Valentine Learning Centers
Kindergarten - 2nd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 2nd grade / 5 - 7 years Make Valentine’s Day extra special with these fun and easy-to-use learning center ideas! Read Your Heart Out Reading Center Fill your classroom library with a dozen or so age-appropriate Valentine-themed books. Invite students to choose a story and curl up on some floor pillows for reading time! Some suggestions include: The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond Happy Valentine’s Day, Little Critter! by Mercer Mayer Nate the Great and the Mushy Valentine by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat Amelia Bedelia’s First Valentine by Herman Parish Arthur’s Great Big Valentine by Lillian Hoban The Biggest Valentine Ever by Steven Kroll The Night Before Valentine’s Day by Natasha Wing How Many Hearts? Math Center Students will love solving simple addition problems with this hands-on Valentine math center! To prepare the center, you will need a die, a few small heart-shaped stampers and a red ink pad, as well as several copies of the How Many Hearts? downloadable page. Cut the copies in half along the dotted line. Have each student take a How Many Hearts? sheet and roll the die. Encourage them to write down the number of dots shown and stamp the corresponding number of hearts above the number in the space provided. Repeat the process for the second number in the addition problem. Then, have students count the total number of stamps to find the correct answer. Variation: Instead of stamps, you can use colorful heart stickers! Can You Hear Your Heartbeat? Science Center This easy-to-create science center will introduce young children to the basic concept of scientific observation! Simply provide a stethoscope at the table for students to use. One at a time, have students use the stethoscope to listen to their heartbeats. Then, have them stand up and do ten jumping jacks and listen to their heartbeats again. Ask them what happened! (Note: You may want to have a parent or other adult volunteer stationed at this center to facilitate questions and clean the stethoscope earpieces with alcohol swabs or disinfecting pads between uses.) Valentine Verses Writing Center Set up a center with heart-themed writing paper and fun Valentine pens or pencils. Invite students to write a poem about people or things in their lives that they love. You may want to help them get started by displaying this poem on posterboard in your learning center. Prompt students to copy the lines of the poem and fill in the blanks with thoughts of their own! Roses are red, Violets are blue, I love my _______________ And ________________, too! Or, have students make up their own verses and write them on the downloadable heart-shaped writing template. After the poem is written, mount it onto red or pink construction paper. Display the poems on a bulletin board in your classroom for Valentine’s Day! Valentine Words Language Center Write the word “VALENTINE” in capital letters across a sentence strip and place it in a center. Provide students with paper and pencils and challenge them to make a list of as many words as they can spell using only the letters in that word! For variation, try the same activity with other Valentine’s Day words, such as sweetheart, candy, cupid, flowers, chocolate and so on.
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Pocket Chart Word Match
Kindergarten - 2nd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 2nd grade / 5 - 7 years Write a nursery rhyme or short poem on sentence strips. Place the sentence strips in a pocket chart. Then have students read the nursery rhyme or poem aloud with you as a shared reading. Invite students to take turns using a pointer to point to the individual words as you read the passage again and again. After a considerable amount of whole-class practice, place the pocket chart in a learning center. Make a second copy of the reading selection on sentence strips and cut out each individual word to make word cards. Challenge students to work together at the center to read each word card and match it to the corresponding word in the pocket chart. Instruct students to place the word cards on top of the words on the sentence strip as they find the match. When they have finished matching, encourage students to read the nursery rhyme or poem together again to check their work.
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Boxes of Fun
Preschool - Kindergarten
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - kindergarten / 3 - 5 years Encourage students to use their holiday gift boxes for a few hands-on math activities: Large to Small—Gather a few boxes of varying sizes and have students arrange them in order, from largest to smallest or smallest to largest. Mix & Match—Take some boxes of different sizes and shapes and separate them from their lids. Then challenge students to match each lid to its correct container—as fast as they can! Quantity Count—Tape a blank note card to the inside bottom of several boxes. Label each note card with a different numeral. Then have students place corresponding numbers of classroom objects or small toys inside the different boxes. Cash & Carry—Have students cut out pictures of toys from a favorite catalog and place them in a box along with the price of each item. Then set up a “store” and have them select a few items that they would like to buy. Have students take turns being the cashier and the customer. Give them some fake coins and bills with which to practice purchasing and counting out change.
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Spring Learning Centers
Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 3rd grade / 5 - 8 years This month, set up some fun learning centers with these creative ideas for spring! Read & Learn Comprehension Center Encourage children to sharpen their comprehension skills with these engaging, spring-themed reading passages! Print out several copies of the Comprehension Cards and place them in a file folder. Have students read the passages silently or with a partner and answer the questions. Kite Scenes Geometry Center Place light blue construction paper and pattern blocks in a center. (If you don’t have pattern blocks, simply download this pattern blocks template and reproduce it for students to use.) On separate index cards, write the name of each pattern block shape, such as triangle, square, trapezoid, parallelogram, rhombus and hexagon. (Be sure to review the name of each shape before having students work independently!) Invite students to choose two or three cards, find the corresponding pattern blocks, and trace the blocks onto a 9" x 12" sheet of blue construction paper. If using the template, have students cut out the shapes and glue them onto the paper. Encourage them to use colored pencils or crayons to add details to the picture so that the shapes look like kites flying in the sky. They can draw the kites’ tails and strings, grass, flowers, clouds and more. After students have completed their pictures, have them describe the shapes they used in their pictures. Or, for older students, provide copies of the Pattern Block Kites reproducible and have them fill it out to describe their picture. Display the pictures with the students’ descriptions on a spring bulletin board titled “Pattern Block Kites.” Nature Detectives Science Center Take your students on a nature walk around the school grounds, and help them collect plant samples to bring back to the classroom for observation. (Or you can have them bring plants from home.) Provide each student with a magnifier and a Plants & Flowers Observation Sheet. Encourage them to examine their specimens and record their observations. After students are finished, invite them to tape their specimens to the top portion of a sheet of construction paper and attach the observation sheet to the bottom portion. Collect the pages, bind them together in a class book and place them in a science center for students to enjoy! For younger students, collect several specimens from plants common in your area, such as a fern, flower, branch and magnolia leaf. Attach each specimen to an index card and label it for added literacy exposure. Then place the cards at a center with magnifiers. Have students choose a specimen, observe it with the magnifier and draw it on a piece of paper. For additional writing practice, challenge students to label the picture by copying the name of the specimen. Little Ladybugs Counting Center Reproduce the ladybugs template onto red construction paper. Cut out the number tiles and ladybug counters, and place them at a center. (You can also laminate the pieces to make them more durable.) For young students, have them choose a number tile and count out the corresponding number of ladybugs. For older students, create additional tiles with math symbols such as an addition sign, a subtraction sign and an equal sign. Then prompt students to create math problems and use the ladybugs to find the answers! Write About It! Spring Language Center Reproduce these Spring-Themed Writing Prompts and place them at a center with pencils and crayons. Invite students to let their creativity flow as they write and illustrate their own stories!
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Gumdrop Graphing
Pre-K - 2nd Grade
This activity is appropriate for: pre-k - 2nd grade / 4 - 7 years What better way to practice essential math skills, while celebrating the flavors of the holiday season, than to conduct a graphing activity…with gumdrops! Begin by purchasing several bags of gumdrops from your local supermarket or drugstore. Divide the bags into individual cups of about 15–20 gumdrops each. (You will need one cup of gumdrops for each student in your class, or one cup for every two students if you have them work in pairs.) Download the Gumdrop Graphing chart and make a copy for each student or pair of students. Have students write the names of the gumdrop colors across the bottom of the chart. Give students the cups of gumdrops and have them place their gumdrops in vertical columns by color to fill in the graph on the sheet. Next, guide students in answering questions about their graphs. For example, you might ask: What is the total number of gumdrops on your graph? Do you have more black gumdrops or more red gumdrops? Which column has the least number of gumdrops? The most? Are any of the columns the same height? If so, which ones? And what does this mean? How many more/fewer yellow gumdrops are there than green gumdrops? Once you have used the graphs to make mathematical comparisons, invite students to eat the gumdrops as a special holiday treat!
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Printing Practice: Thank-You Notes
Preschool - 5th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: preschool - 5th grade / 3 - 10 years No doubt students will receive a few gifts over the holiday season. What better way to reinforce the concept of gratitude—and practice handwriting and language skills—than to have them write thank-you notes! Distribute some fun and decorative stationery along with a whimsical holiday pen or pencil that students will look forward to using. Encourage them to write notes of appreciation as they receive gifts from friends or relatives. Note: For younger students, you may want to have parents write the majority of the note as their child dictates it to them, and then have the child print his name at the bottom of the note. As they get more practice, you can have them write more, such as the recipient’s name or the name of the gift item for which he is writing the thank-you note.
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Manipulating Money
Pre-K - 1st Grade
This activity is appropriate for: pre-k - 1st grade / 4 - 6 years In honor of Presidents’ Day, take the opportunity to point out to your students that most U.S. coins feature pictures of past American presidents. Then, let your students explore the coins hands-on with these fun activities! Coin Rubbing—Divide the class into groups of three or four, and provide each group with several different coins to share. Then, give each student a sheet of paper and some crayons. Have students place the paper on top of a coin and gently color over the paper with the side of a crayon to make a coin rubbing. Encourage them to repeat the process with both sides of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. The result will be colorful imprints of a variety of coins! Penny Probability—Place three pennies and a dime into a paper bag. Ask students to predict which of the two types of coins they are likely to pull out of the bag at random. Test their predictions by drawing a coin out of the bag and recording which coin was selected. Replace the coin and repeat this process 10 times. Allow different student volunteers to take turns removing and replacing the coins. At the conclusion of the demonstration, guide students in discovering that the probability of selecting the penny out of the bag is 3 out of 4, while the probability of selecting the dime is only 1 out of 4. Simple Sorting—Reinforce categorizing and sorting skills by having students work in pairs to sort jars of coins into piles by coin type. Then, have them arrange the different piles in order by size or by value. Penny Predictions—Hold up a penny and ask students to guess how many drops of water they think will fit on the penny. As they guess, ask them to explain why they think their guesses are reasonable. Then have each student work with a partner and give each pair a penny, an eyedropper, and a small cup of water. Encourage the pair to designate one person to count while the other carefully places drops of water onto the penny—one drop at a time until the water “overflows” and drips off of the surface of the penny. Then have them switch roles to try it again. Invite the class to compare their results and discuss whether or not they were consistent. (You might want to provide a simple explanation for how the water drops cling to the penny’s surface and create a “net” called surface tension until the force of gravity becomes stronger than the water and causes the “net” to break.)
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End-Of-The-Year Olympic Games
Kindergarten - 5th Grade
This activity is appropriate for: kindergarten - 5th grade / 5 - 10 years Celebrate the end of another great year by staging your own classroom Olympic Games! Divide the class into a few groups, and let them choose a name and make a flag for their group. Start the games with an opening ceremony, letting kids march around the playground or classroom, waving their group flags. Next, have the teams compete in a series of events. Below are some possible events you might stage. Balloon Race: Kids put a balloon between their knees and run or hop to the finish line. Children can compete as individuals or as relay teams. (Note: Don’t inflate the balloon all the way. Leave some room so that the balloons can be held comfortably between kids’ knees.) Balloon Hug Relay: Place a balloon between two kids’ bellies. Have the kids move sideways to the finish line without dropping the balloon. The first team across the finish line wins! Drinking Straw Race: Have each child hold a drinking straw, balanced on her upper lip. Show kids how to curl their lips to hold the straw in place. Then have a race to see who can run to the finish line without letting their straw slip. Feather-In-My-Toes Race: Have racers take off one shoe and sock, and fit a feather in between two toes. They then race, trying to cross the finish line without losing their feathers. (If they do, they have to go back to the start.) Egg-On-A-Spoon Race: Have children try to balance a plastic egg on a spoon while walking to the finish line. This can also be done as a team relay race. In a relay, children have to transfer the eggs from their spoons to the next child’s spoon before the race continues. Backwards Race: Have children walk backwards to the finish line. Make sure that kids don’t try to run—they are likely to fall if they try to go too fast! After the games are over, have a closing ceremony. Let everyone march around with their teams and flags again. You may want to encourage kids to sing songs or chants to help make things festive! Healthy snacks can also be served at the closing ceremony.
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