Teacher’s Favorite February Activities for School
February is a month full of lovely possibilities! From heart-shaped sharing to festive math games, these February activities for school are sure to get your students excited about learning during the shortest month of the year.
Whether you’re planning around Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day, or simply trying to beat the winter slump, February is the perfect time to mix a little novelty into your routine. Shorter weeks and chilly days call for activities that feel playful yet purposeful, giving students a reason to stay focused and curious. These ideas balance creativity, collaboration, and core skills, making them easy to slip into your lesson plans without adding extra prep.
So grab your Valentine’s Day candy and prepare for sweet learning fun! Here are some of our teachers’ favorite February activities to keep student engagement fresh and fun.
Focus on Black History Month
February is a great time to celebrate and honor Black History Month in the classroom. With February’s focus on love and connection, it’s the perfect opportunity to explore Black Americans’ history, culture, literature, and art. Teaching students about Black History Month helps foster an inclusive environment where all cultures are respected and celebrated.
Teachers can use so many wonderful activities to engage their students in learning more about this important subject matter. From creating timelines of influential Black Americans to researching civil rights movements, there are plenty of meaningful ways for students to dive into this topic.
Would you like a Free Biography Sorting Activity?
In this Biography Sorting Activity, students can analyze and group historical figures by what makes them memorable. After reading a short statement of each individual, learners determine in which category they should be sorted based on their lasting fame or impact. This set includes 43 people from various backgrounds spanning ten different categories, plus an additional option for creating your own!
Valentine’s Day February Activities for the Classroom
Valentine’s Day is a great time to get creative and engage students in meaningful learning activities. From sharing heartfelt messages of appreciation to exploring Valentine’s Day’s history, there are many ways to make this special holiday educational and fun for your students!
Read books about Friendship and Kindness.
For Valentine’s Day, teachers can share books that focus on love and kindness with their students. These books celebrate the holiday and promote important values that can be incorporated into classroom discussions and activities.
One book to consider is “Love” by Matt de la Peña. In this heartwarming story, a young boy learns about different forms of love through his family and community. The illustrations add depth to the message, making it perfect for discussing diverse families and communities with students.
Another great choice is “Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed” by Emily Pearson. This book tells the story of a girl who starts a chain reaction of kindness after picking blueberries for her neighbor. It teaches children that small acts of kindness can greatly impact others.
Here are a few more read aloud books that your students will LOVE!
- “The Invisible String” by Patrice Karst explores the idea of loved ones being connected even when they are apart.
- “You Are Special” by Max Lucado.
- “Ten Things I Love About You” by Daniel Kirk – create a foldable where students list 10 things they love about another person
Have a heart-shaped sharing session
Invite students to take turns sharing something special with the class in the shape of a heart. It could be an item, a photo, a story, or something they want to share.
Pass out a sheet of construction paper to each student in class with instructions for them to make a heart shape. Ask each student to write one thing they like about themselves, their family, or a friend in their heart.
This is a great way to encourage open communication and foster an environment of acceptance and understanding. It can also allow teachers to discuss topics like emotions, empathy, and kindness in a safe space.
Inspire students to go home and write down their favorite books on paper hearts. Then, create a beautiful bulletin board in the classroom with all of these books for everyone to admire!
FREE I Love that I. . . . Valentine’s Day Activity
While it is nice to focus on spreading kindness for Valentine’s Day, it is also vital to help students focus on themselves. Thankfully, this FREE Valentine’s Day Classroom Activity allows students to focus on three aspects. This includes what they can do, who they are, and their character traits. Then, students transform their brainstorming into a joyful heart.
Valentine’s Day Craft Flap
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a heart-shaped Flap Book that encourages students to reflect on and describe the unique qualities of the people they care about. This delightful craft is perfect for the week leading up to this heartfelt holiday, allowing for meaningful connections and expressions of love.
The Valentine’s Day Flap Book is perfect for spreading kindness. Specifically, students will reflect on special aspects of their lives, such as friends, family, and school. Students will adore this project!
Make Valentine’s Day Cards or Compliment Cards
Students can make their own Valentine’s Day cards for their classmates. This is a great way to get them thinking creatively and using their imaginations.
Making these cards with classmates is always a fun February activity! Students can get creative designing cards for their friends, whether using construction paper, markers, crayons, stickers, or other arts and crafts materials.
This is a great way to help boost the classroom atmosphere with meaningful gestures of friendship and appreciation. Allowing students to make their own cards allows them to express themselves and connect with their imaginations. Such an activity helps unite everyone as they share messages of love and kindness through cute DIY cards!
Take it one step further and have students write a compliment on the card for each student or have students create compliment cards for the teachers and staff throughout the school. Or create cards for a local senior center.
Make Valentine Boxes
Inspire your students to think outside the box this Valentine’s Day with What Can You Do With a Box?
Get creative and have them craft unique boxes for their valentines, making it an extra special day!
Involve Parents in the Love of Valentine’s Day
Send home a blank heart to your students’ parents and request them to decorate it without their child’s knowledge. Ask that they include illustrations, colors, objects, etc., that best describe the child. On Valentine’s Day, reveal the hearts for all to see and have each student guess which one came from their family! It will be an exciting day of surprises full of love – who can resist such meaningful fun?
Fun Valentine’s Day Writing Prompts
Infuse the love of writing throughout February with these writing prompts. These February writing prompts are perfect for third through fifth-grade students. Included are 42 writing prompts that span all writing domains: opinion writing, narrative writing, and informational writing. All these writing prompts are on one page with a graphic organizer and writing space!
February Themed Cloze Reading Activities
These Cloze Reading Passages for February prompt students to utilize context clues and make inferences to identify the appropriate word or phrase within a sentence. The passages revolve around President’s Day, Groundhog Day, Rosa Parks, Games, Friendship, and Kindness, fostering engagement and comprehension.
Math Games with a Valentine’s Day Twist
Graphing and sorting conversation hearts is a fun Valentine’s Day math activity that students of all ages can enjoy. It helps them practice their graphing, sorting, and counting skills while getting into the festive spirit and making math learning fun. This activity is one of my go-to math activities I add to my Valentine’s Day lesson plans.
You can engage your students in an educational yet enjoyable task with colorful conversation hearts and simple prompts. Students can begin with a box of conversation hearts. Students sort them into color categories. They will then create a graph to record the number of each type of heart found in their collection.
This exercise teaches important mathematical concepts such as data analysis, organizing information visually using graphs, recognizing patterns within given data sets, and more! As an added bonus, it’s also quite tasty!
Would you like a FREE February Conversation Heart Sorting and Graphing Sheet?
Valentine’s Day Art Projects
Often, students love art projects! Honestly, it is so important for students to develop their creativity. Luckily, the Valentine’s Day Art Activities has several amazing projects for students to bring happiness and art projects together.
Valentine’s Day Activities for Distance Learning
While Valentine’s Day is such a fun time, it is also during a germ-filled season. Therefore, it is essential to have Valentine’s Day Activities for Distance Learning! There are activities for students to work on that relate to every content area! For instance, students will learn about the heart and the story of Cupid. Best of all, these activities also work great for in-person learning.
Valentine’s Day Science Activities
While love may be in the air, students will learn about the love of science! They will do this through 14 Valentine’s Day Science Activities. The Scientific Method will help guide students as they all have a hands-on role in learning about exciting topics. This includes oil and water and a color-changing flower. Hearts will go pitter-patter with these projects!
Have a Class Valentine’s Day Party!
If you’re having a Valentine’s Day party, you might also want to play some games at the party. If you’re looking for some games to play, I’ve got a post all about them!
Valentine’s Party Games
Need more ideas for the end of the day? Check out these routines to make that day just a bit calmer.
Informational Articles about Valentine’s Day
This Valentine’s Day, unlock the secrets of this romantic holiday through three awesome reading passages! From learning about chocolate history to discovering how Valentine’s Day is celebrated worldwide, you’re sure to make your students fall in love with close-reading activities. So show some love and spread knowledge while having a blast on February 14th!
Valentine’s Day Reading Passages
Discover the history of chocolate, the origins of Valentine’s Day, and how the holiday is celebrated around the world. These fun and engaging close-reading resources are perfect for sparking interest in reading and learning about Valentine’s Day.
President’s Day Activities for Elementary Students
President’s Day is a great opportunity to teach students about the presidents serving our country. There are tons of activities that can be done to help bring these lessons to life.
Students can read a biography about one or more presidents and then write a report about the person.
Or consider taking a virtual trip to Mt. Rushmore and the White House. Virtually explore these two iconic landmarks from your computer or other device, learning about the history of each place and the people who made them famous. You could try to find hidden historical facts about each location and take a virtual tour around the area, taking in all of its breathtaking views.
Learning about the US Presidents at Mt Rushmore would be especially interesting, and you could even learn the secrets behind some of their most famous quotes. Exploring the White House grounds would also provide a unique insight into American politics and culture. The virtual field trip would surely be an enlightening experience you’ll never forget.
If I Were President for a Day
Have students write what they would do if they were president for a day. It’s incredible to hear the ambitions of our students; they are determined to make a positive impact, expressing their desires and bringing them to life. Their determination is awe-inspiring as they strive towards changing the world!
February is a great month for classroom celebrations! No matter how you choose to celebrate, these February activities will help your classroom feel festive while providing an opportunity for learning about love, kindness, and friendship. There are many more ideas below! Do you have some favorite February activities? Share them with us in the comments below!
I work on Black History readings for my 8th graders. I have such a diverse group of students so I try to hit all of the cultural & ethnic backgrounds that I can throughout the year. We will work on text evidence, story & narrative elements, text structure, and summarizing.
I love doing Valentines day projects and work with my students. Their art projects are so cute
I enjoy to have a themed writing prompt about something the students love about themselves. I like giving the students a chance to reflect on their positive traits.
I like have daily Google Classroom posts about black history “Mystery Heroes.” I share a picture of the person and give three interesting facts about them. Students love guessing who they are and learning unique things about them!
We do so many things with kindness and love. My favorite is sending home a blank heart and asking parents to decorate it without their child seeing it. They include illustrations, colors, objects etc. that would describe their student. Then on Valentine’s Day I reveal them and they have to guess which one came from their family. I love seeing the things parents do to create something special for their student!
My favorite activities to do during February are President’s activities & Valentine’s Day, & Snow/Winter activities.
My favourite February activity is the 28 day Calendar of Kindness Challenge. In Civic Education and Geography we study citizenship in this period. I like to combine the lesson of children’s rights with responsibilities and tie in kindness.
Hello Jessica,
I love working on Mardi Gras as I live in New Orleans.
This is not just a celebration, it’s a season and one of the best !!
My favorite February activity is having the students write heartfelt letters to an anonymous student in our class. They address an envelope to themselves and I stuff a letter in, then I send the.m to Valentine, Texas to hand cancel all the envelopes with a unique stamp made each year for Valentine’s Day.
My favorite February activities are for Groundhog’s Day. They include predictions and looking at our shadows.
We continue our Kindness theme (carry it over from January). We celebrate ways we can be kind, caring, and how we can pay it forward! It’s so empowering for these kids!
Our students in 3rd and 4th grade complete a Black History Month banner project in February. It’s amazing to see all of these on display! Each day we spotlight a few famous African Americans. I also love celebrating the month by completing kindness challenges each day leading up to Valentine’s Day.
I work with student with cognitive impairments. We do a variety of projects that include an art project they can take home for their Valentine and we do a cooking project. Last year we did sugar cookies…they love their frosting!!! This year we will be making chocolate covered strawberries and pink/red white trash! Looking forward to that one!
My favorite February activities are ones about love- but specifically, a writing project my second graders do on things they love about themselves!
I start Black history studies in January to ensure I honor Black History Month all February! With lower grades students, I’ve found they really struggle with understanding the passage of time needed to connect the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to modern history. So, I like making a LARGE timeline in the hallway between two classrooms where we study Black history beginning with the Civil War, slowly logging events and learning about heroes through the American Civil Rights Movement, through the election of Obama, onward and onward. It helps students to put into perspective not only what 10, 20, 50 and 100 years ago means, but it helps them to see how the actions of individuals make great change 🙂 For V-Day, I get students to brainstorm character traits with evidence to describe their peers, and we decorate large hearts with the words. I turn the hearts into valentine holders and the kids get to take them home.
I teach the students in a self contained classroom. We make heart shapes out of construction paper, stamps and newspaper. We will read the messages on conversational hearts and then eat them.
My school hosts a Black History Showcase event for parents and community members.
We love to create Valentine Boxes as a STEAM activity and read the book What Can You Do With a Box. The kids get to be creative and have a blast while doing it.
My favourite February activity is a bulletin Board display we make. My student practice printing by writing all school students names on hearts. The entire school enjoys stopping by our class to find their name on a heart.
We read a book each day about a different African American. The students love learning about new people.
I love to do Random Acts of Kindness activities!
Because I teach at a low income school, I love teaching my kids about Lincoln’s life. Showing them that hard work and perseverance pays off.
I love predicting if the groundhog will see his shadow or not and then using the graph to answer questions.
My favorite activities to do during February are winter activities, penguins, arctic animals, and President’s activities.
We celebrate with several activities. We have global Play Day on 2/1 where the children can bring in a game or small toy and they have an hour or so to play together. On 2/3 we are having our 100th day with many math and writing activities to go with it. On 2/14 we have a card swap and small snack to celebrate “friendship/Valentine’s Day. It’s a very busy month for my first graders!
I love celebrating 100 days in Kindergarten as well as predicting the outcome of Groundhog’s day,
I love reading books about kindness and giving students fun activities to do that revolve around kindness, like a kindness calendar or writing a kind note to a friend, teacher, bus driver, neighbor, etc.
Valentine craftivities
We have many things we celebrate in February. 2/1 is global play day, where the children bring in a boardgame or small toy and play together for an hour or so. On 2/3, we will be celebrating our hundredth day of school with many writing and math activities. On 2/14, we will have a card swap and small snack to celebrate friendship/Valentine’s Day.
My favorite February activities are based around Groundhog Day, Valentines Day and the 100th Day of School!
My favorite February activity is to have the kids right positive character traits about their classmates for what we “love” about each other. I stole the activity from Joanna Miller and it makes a really cute display and is fun too! I also like doing all the fun Valentines activities and Superbowl. Anything to get engagement!
I try to focus on kindness, since it’s already a month all about showing love to others, and I challenge my students to complete acts of kindness each day. I also inform parents so that this transfers home and they have extra time to practice kind deeds towards others.
My favorite February activities align with celebrating black history month. We read Watsons Go To Burmingham and have very helpful discussions. We also use our morning meeting to analyze quotes from Influential black figures. Students also write Valentines day papers about a family member with a great heart.
I love to do class building activities – for example I have one where each of my class members have to choose some adjectives to describe a person in my class from a numbered list on a slide in a powerpoint. I change to my second slide and pass the cards to their owner. The numbers correspond to some movement actions like slide, skip, twist, jump…. So when the person gets their card back with a few numbers on it, they do some movements that are assigned to the numbers. The last thing I do is show the original slide that shows the adjectives where they can see what their secret admirer said about them. It is so fun and building.
Making smores and connecting it to fractions.
I love reading books about kindness and giving students fun activities to do that revolve around kindness, like a kindness calendar or writing a kind note to a friend, teacher, bus driver, neighbor, etc.
I like to start out with a linking activity use red construction paper. First person starts the activity with one nice word to describe the next person filling out the link…we end up with a class full of nice words about each student in the class. Then, I hang it up in the classroom above their heads. If they’re having a bad day throughout the month, I direct them to look at the nice word about themselves. I also, give them digital cliparts to create a Valentines for everyone in the class using Google Slides. The rest of the time, we focus on presidents and Black History Month.
I love teaching about President’s Day… Especially Washington and Lincoln!
I love for my students to create Valentine’s cards in Google Slides. They always enjoy it and some of their cards are pretty creative. I let the lower grade students choose images from a collection of pre-selected clipart, but the older students have to create theirs from scratch. They can use google drawing to make images and insert into their cards. It is usually a very successful project.
My favorite thing to do during February is to celebrate all our great heroes during Black History month, participate in the Catholic Schools Week activities with our great school, and participate in all the kindness activities through our books unit Each Kindness, and Jelly Donut Difference. Another one of my favorite things to celebrate this month is the 100th day of school as students dress up as they are 100 and we celebrate all the things we have learned the past 100 days!
I enjoy working on Valentine’s activities. ( The students make valentine’s cards for the local seniors home.) I enjoy teaching about Healthy activities during Feb. ( think healthy heart) We read picture books about friendship and kindness and have great discussions. For the shortest month, we have the most ‘holidays’ and lessons to teach and explore!
For the 100th Day of School I love when we challenge ourselves to read 100 books! It usually takes my class about 20-25 minutes to read that many, and we make a big list on a piece of butcher paper to hang in the hallway and show others.
We play Valentine games in math and ELA, do president reports and comparative writing, practice showing kindness and sharing kindness strategies.
February is one of my favorite months because so much is going on. In my class it is I love to read month. My students take home hearts that they bring back with Titles and authors of books that they read at home. By the end of the month, our bulletin board is full of them. I of course love all the fun Valentine’s activities and centers as well.
As a second grade ELA teacher, we complete focus on non-fiction texts in February. We read about President’s Day, and Valentine’s day. We take Valentine’s Day as a chance to be creative with various reading based projects as well.
I love to do Valentine’s math activities with my kids. Anything from graphing to fractions with Valentine’s Day treats.
“If I were President for a day….” The students write about what they would do/change, act out their goals and dreams and try to change the world!! Amazing to hear their thoughts!
My students report on famous African Americans using google slides. Seems lame, but it is really fun.
I love art projects and self-love projects-be your own valentine!
I love doing valentines centers and art. Also, kindness activities!