Valentine’s Day Language Activities

Valentine’s Day is a good time to get kids thinking about expressing their appreciation for other people, and lots of language arts activities this time of year center on that. For younger kids, using heart shapes to reinforce basic concepts adds a lot of fun. Here are a bunch of Valentine’s Day language activities for kids of a range of ages.

Kids learning their sight words will enjoy these color by sight word coloring pages by 123 Homeschool 4 Me. Liz’s Early Learning Spot has a downloadable sight word board game with a heart theme.

Or you can make your sight words appear by magic by writing them in white crayon on this printable from Playdough to Plato and having the kids uncover and read the word (using marker or watercolor paint).

Teach Beside Me used paper hearts to teach about homonyms, synonyms and antonyms, and this is an easy one you can do yourself without any printables (unless you need a template for the heart shape). You could make this one into a scavenger hunt by hiding words around the room and then having kids match up the correct hearts.

Rhyming words are always fun for little kids, and this printable from Only Passionate Curiosity lets kids play with rhyming words in heart shapes. Here again you could sprinkle the words around the room and have kids collect ones that rhyme (the printable pack includes envelopes they can use to gather their rhymes in).

The jar of gratitude from Inspired Elementary is great to do as a classroom, or each child can fill their own jar with things they love and are thankful for.

Composition Classroom has a fun Valentine’s Day limerick/Mad Libs style poem printable that’s great for upper elementary and middle school kids. It’s a free download on Teachers Pay Teachers.

And this sweet printable from What Have I Learned Teaching gets kids to reflect on things they like about themselves.

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Celebrating Coloring Book Day with Printable Coloring Pages

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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