Best Valentine’s Day Lessons & Activities

Computer keyboard with heart on large key.
(Image credit: Pixabay/athree23)

Valentine’s Day provides an excellent opportunity to incorporate fun and engaging popular culture into your classroom instruction. Graphic arts, design, literacy, social-emotional learning, history, and even STEM topics lend themselves nicely to Valentine's Day themes.  

All of the following digital resources and lessons are free or low cost.

K-8 Valentine’s Day Lessons & Activities

Valentine's Day Escape
Roses are red, violets are blue, this escape room puzzle is not so easy to do! Just challenging enough to be fun, this Valentine’s Day escape room asks users to enter the correct keys for word, number, directional, color, and date locks. Good luck!

Safe Kid Valentine’s Day Games
No account is needed to play these simple, free Valentine’s-themed games, which include memory/matching, maze, and Cupid’s target practice. Games are shareable to Google classroom. For full site access with no ads, the classroom plan allows up to 30 devices, for $4.99/month. Free seven-day trial. 

ABCYa Valentine’s Day Puzzles
Young learners practice click-and-drag mouse manipulation, as well as shape and pattern recognition, in this Valentine’s chocolate box puzzle game. Be sure to check out the Valentine-themed crossword puzzle, which provides helpful hints if needed.  

Reading Rockets Valentines Day Lessons
No doubt you’ve heard of haiku, but do you know about other short poetic forms, such as sijo and cinquain? Charming and educational, these varied activities help kids explore Valentine's Day through wordplay, writing, and poetry. Free, no account required. 

A Kid’s Heart: Valentine’s Day Math Games
These Valentine’s-themed digital games help kids practice problems involving addition, exponents, and prime numbers. The free site is easy to navigate and requires no account. 

Festisite Valentine Heart
A simple, fun way for kids to get visual with Valentine’s Day poetry. Text is transformed into a heart-shaped, downloadable image or document. Have your students write their own, or analyze a published verse.  

Starfall
Starfall’s create-your-own digital Valentine’s Day greeting helps the youngest students with spoken language, words, and spelling while they enjoy a variety of kid-friendly characters. Starfall’s Math Journey Valentine edition teaches basic number concepts as users traverse a heart-filled landscape. 

St. Valentine's Day by Stephanie
Six cloze stories about St. Valentine and St. Valentine's Day provide grammar/word choice practice for young learners as they explore the history and culture of the holiday.   

Tynker: Valentine’s Day Card, Candy Heart Search and On Cloud Nine In these three great STEAM projects for young learners, kids learn coding and graphic arts while creating interactive Valentine’s Day cards and games.

Valentine STEM Challenges
It’s not all hearts and flowers! Use this top-rated, standards-aligned 46-page PDF lesson to incorporate STEM topics such as physics and engineering into your Valentine’s Day instruction. Convertible to interactive digital format, this comprehensive package is currently priced for the season at a modest $8.00.   

9-12 Valentine’s Day Lessons & Activities

Who was Saint Valentine? A history of the figure's origins
Who were the martyrs Valentinus? Wait - there was more than one St. Valentine? Yes, as explained in this fascinating investigation of the history of Valentine’s Day. Touching on famous poets, authors and historians, as well as the men themselves, it’s a great read for older kids. Assignment idea: Have your students research and write about Valentine’s Day as seen through the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare or Donne.  

The New York Times Valentine’s Day Across the Curriculum
Mine this rich vein of educational Valentine’s Day prompts and activities from The New York Times. Diverse topics include writing/literature, history, psychology, and even economics. Perfect for students grades 9-12. Free, no account required. 

Pocket Heart (iOs)
This interactive 3D cardiology app is the real deal, used by medical students, doctors, and nurses. With its high-quality visuals, detailed descriptive content, and quizzes, it’s ideal for advanced biology or other life science studies. After the seven-day free trial, pay $0.99 monthly or $9.49 annually. 

Virtual Valentines 2024: Melting the Miles between Classrooms
Designed by educators, the free Virtual Valentine’s Project aims to teach geography and cultural awareness through virtual Valentine’s greetings. Two options for global connections are offered, both ideal for remote or classroom learning.

Watch and Learn Heart Interactives
Valentine's Day is filled with heart imagery and love poetry. But it’s the perpetual beating of the physical heart that keeps us alive and feeling emotions. Advanced students can use this free expert interactive from the American Heart Association to learn about multiple key topics in cardiology, from angina to  stents.  

All ages Valentine’s Day Lessons & Activities

Plays.org Valentine’s Day Games
Want more than amusing gameplay? Explore this fine collection of free Valentine’s Day games, which include games featuring spatial logic, real-world physics and brain-teasing puzzles. Fun and educational. No account required, but create one to save your favorite games. 

Love Magnetic Poetry Kit
Ever written poetry on your fridge? This simple digital “magnetic” poetry game offers batches of 40 to 50 words to create lines with whimsy, wisdom, and emotion. When done, click “More words'' to get a new set and start again. Challenge your students with a theme or genre, and let the random fun begin.   


Diana Restifo

Diana has been Tech & Learning's web editor and contributor since 2010, dedicated to ferreting out the best free tech tools for teachers.