Fall in Love With Valentine’s Day Activities for School

Planning your Valentine’s Day activities for school doesn’t have to be stressful. This holiday is an opportunity for fun, meaningful exploration of themes like love, gratitude, communication, and cultural traditions. 

With Newsela’s differentiated texts and ready-to-use activities, you can bring timely ELA, social studies, and science lessons into your classroom and meet your instructional goals while staying engaged.

Jump to:

• ELA Valentine’s Day activities for school
• Social studies Valentine’s Day activities for school
• Science Valentine’s Day activities for school

[ELA Valentine’s Day activities for school](id-ela)

Key takeaways:

• Love-themed literature is an engaging entry point for exploring character, theme, symbolism, and the author’s craft.
• Writing contests help students practice narrative structure, descriptive language, and dialogue.
• Newsela’s fiction, poetry, and myth collections provide ready-to-use Valentine’s Day reading options.

What can students learn from writing their own love stories?

When students write their own love stories, they practice crafting characters, building plots, and expressing universal emotions in relatable ways. Creative writing also helps students experiment with descriptive language and dialogue to make their stories come alive.

To give students these experiences, have them join our Love Stories writing contest! Students will write a 400-2000-word romance story or a story about love. To teach them how to engage readers, use the following lessons that each focus on a different aspect of writing: 

• Launch Your Love Story: Elements of a Love Story
• The Heart of the Story: Theme
• Main Character Energy: Character Traits
• For the Plot: Love Story Plots
• Let’s Talk About It: Dialogue
• It’s Giving…Movie!: Descriptive Language
• Love at First Vote: Contest Semi-Finalists

Submission details: 

Email entries to creativewriting.contest@newsela.com by Saturday, February 14. Include student name, grade, school district, and teacher email.

No fanfiction will be accepted.

Winners will be featured on Newsela!

How can students explore love in poetry, myths, and fiction?

Valentine’s Day is a great time to introduce texts that explore love from different cultural and literary perspectives. Poetry captures emotion, while myths illustrate timeless stories, and fiction shows how love shapes choices and relationships.

Use these readings to help students analyze the author’s craft, figurative language, and theme.

Myths

• Apollo loves Daphne, but she doesn’t love him back: A Greek myth
• Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty: A Greek myth
• Cupid and Psyche, love and marriage: A Roman myth
• The tragic love story of Orpheus and Eurydice: A Greek myth

Poetry

• “My Loves” by Langston Hughes
• “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns
• “When Love” by Alicia Ostriker
• “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning
• “Sonnet 116” by William Shakespeare

Fiction

• “Fox Wedding” by Tim J. Myers
• “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Andersen
• “The Fulness of Life” by Edith Wharton

Looking for a longer in-class novel or recommendations for students’ independent reading? Try a love story from our Novel and Book Studies collection!

What perspectives can students analyze when debating the risks and rewards of love?

Students may enjoy discussing the complexities of love. They can ask whether the benefits of love outweigh the risks, evaluate arguments and viewpoints, and cite textual evidence. Students can do a Pro/Con analysis and track authors’ perspectives on this topic while reading poems like:

• “Sonnet XLIII” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• “A Birthday” by Christina Rossetti
• “Mortality” by William Knox

How can students explore different meanings of love?

Love can take the forms of friendship, devotion, connection, or shared values. Using varied texts, students can reflect on how people across time and cultures understand love. While researching, students can explore texts on topics like:

• Ancient philosophers' writings on love.
• Advantages of dating someone who’s also your friend.
• The way love is described in poems like “Prisms” by Laura Riding Jackson.

What can students discover when researching Valentine’s Day treats like chocolate?

Chocolate is more than a sweet treat. Its history spans continents, cultures, and centuries. Research projects on chocolate allow students to practice informational reading, compare texts, analyze cause-and-effect, and explore global influence.

Share research resources like:

• An article that explores the history of chocolate.
• A biography of one of the most famous chocolate makers in the world, Milton Hershey!
• Articles that name the most popular chocolate treats for the major sweets holidays like Valentine’s Day and Halloween.

[Social studies Valentine’s Day activities for school](id-ss)

Key takeaways:

• Learning the history of Valentine’s Day helps students understand cultural traditions and the evolution of holidays.
• Newsela Social Studies provides accessible resources to build background knowledge on Valentine’s Day origins, symbolism, and modern celebrations.
• Valentine’s Day content encourages critical thinking about how societies shape and adapt traditions over time.

What is the history behind Valentine’s Day?

Students may be surprised to learn how far back Valentine’s Day's history really goes. Exploring its origins helps them understand how traditions evolve through religion, mythology, and cultural practices. 

Texts can build historical context while supporting comprehension of topics like:

• The origins of Valentine’s Day and the legend of St. Valentine.
• The history of chocolate, and why this sweet treat is such a popular gift for the holiday.
• Why some people choose edible gifts, like bacon rose bouquets, over flowers.

[Science Valentine’s Day activities for school](id-sci)

Key takeaways:

• Valentine’s Day is a hook for STEAM activities that teach scientific concepts through creative projects.
• Hands-on experiments deepen understanding of mixtures, evaporation, coding, and place value.
• Newsela’s seasonal science activities give students the chance to create meaningful Valentine’s gifts.

What activities can students use to learn about mixtures and evaporation?

Students can create a shiny, sparkly Valentine’s Day gift for friends or family members while exploring science concepts. They can:

• Explore the properties of heterogeneous and homogenous mixtures.
• Discover how matter and energy affect evaporation and condensation.
• Make crystal hearts using construction paper, salt, and water.

How can students use binary code to create secret Valentine’s Day messages?

Binary code valentines introduce students to foundational computer science concepts even without using screens. Students can practice logical thinking, pattern recognition, and symbolic representation with resources that:

• Explore the place-value number system we use in counting and measuring.
• Discover how Amazon’s education program may teach more than 100 million students a year how to code.
• Create binary-coded keychains, necklaces, or bracelets with secret messages to give as Valentine’s Day gifts.

Spread the love with Newsela’s subject products

Newsela makes it simple to bring seasons, standards-aligned content into your classroom. With high-interest texts, built-in activities, and easy-to-use collections, you can plan engaging Valentine’s Day lessons without the stress.

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