Use What You Have for Valentine’s Themed Fun

January 27, 2023 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Sometimes making learning activities that go with a holiday means going out and buying lots of holiday-themed items, which isn’t great for your budget or the environment. While all those heart-shaped things are cute, there are things you can do without having to buy any other supplies that are still a lot of fun.

These Valentine’s Day learning activities use things you probably already have in the classroom (and at least a couple of them are things you probably have at home even if you don’t homeschool).

Take the Valentine brick challenge from 123 Homeschool 4 Me. This is a printable list of 28 challenges related to love and Valentine’s Day that kids can make with Legos. It includes things like making the word “love” out of bricks, making a heart with bricks, a box of candy and other fun challenges. (Head to the blog for the printable.)

If you have snap cubes you can use these Valentine’s Day themed building challenges from Kindergarten Worksheets and Games. (They could be done with Legos, too, but might not come out exactly the same since Legos are not cubes.) This one includes a math activity in that it has kids count how many blocks they used. You could also talk about how many blocks of each color, does one project use more or fewer blocks compared to another, and other math concepts.

Or try these fine-motor mats from Life over C’s. They use similar Valentine’s Day symbols but kids can cover up the images with different colored pom-poms (or use buttons, plastic discs, whatever small and colorful you have on hand). They can use their hands to move the pom-poms or use tweezers to make it a bit more of a challenge. Kids could also use these printed in black and white with dot markers to “color in” the shapes.

[Photo: Kindergarten Worksheets and Games.]

Have you read?

Book Review: Dear Math, We’re Not Friends

My daughter has always liked math, which is a relief to me as someone who never really got math when I was growing up. (As a knitter I use math a lot now and have managed to learn what I need, but not much else.)

For kids who aren’t fans of math who could use a little encouragement and understanding of what math is for, there’s Dear Math, We’re Not Friends by Lina Chopra Haldar with illustrations by Teresa Martinez.

Nikil starts school not liking math and his teacher has him write letters to math. He complains that math makes his tummy hurt but thinks it’s funny when his teacher says talking about shapes and drawing are part of math.

As the year goes on he learns about skip counting, counting backwards, fractions and the special names for different shapes. When he learns about octagons he starts seeing them everywhere. He discovers that math is part of being an astronaut and an artist, two things he might like to be when he grows up.

Math helps him with soccer and helps bees make honey, and he uses it in his art projects, too. In the end he decides that math really is his friend because it helps you make things and understand the world around you.

The book is cute and has full illustrations that literally show math in different environments. It also includes a page about the inspiration for the story and why the author, a math teacher herself, wanted to write a book addressing math anxiety. It has prompts kids can use to write their own letters to math or use in discussions about math, as well as other ideas to help kids feel more confident about math.

This would be a good book for math teachers and others to have on hand for those kids who don’t love math or see a purpose for it outside of the classroom. The target reader is ages 5-8.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Beaming Books. Suggested retail price $19.99.

Have you read?

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