Valentine’s Day revolves around the theme of LOVE, so why not the little children understand love as an emotion? To begin with love of parents, love of sharing, love of learning. Most Important of all is to learn to be KIND to each other.
To make you understand better about this idea, below are some activities that centered around love, kindness, and friendship, which can help students develop emotional intelligence and understand their own emotions and of others around them.
1. VALENTINE’S DAY LOVE LETTERS
Children can design love letters for their parents. Teachers can encourage them to show their love for their parents.
2. SECRET ADMIRER: Encourage students to write secret admirer notes for one another. These can be delivered anonymously or with a name attached. This can be the same as the above activity. However, now admirers can be anyone.
2. VALENTINE’S DAY KINDNESS BINGO GAME
Design a bingo for the students with examples such as smiling and saying hello to at least ten people, holding the door for someone, tidying your room without being asked, and many more.
Sample Image: Source https://www.twinkl.co.in/resource/t-he-653-kindness-scavenger-hunt-activity-sheet
3. VALENTINE’S DAY KINDNESS JAR
Create a kindness jar and encourage students to write and place anonymous notes of kindness and appreciation inside.
4. VALENTINE’S DAY KINDNESS CHAIN
Encourage children to perform small acts of kindness for others and write each act down on sticky notes of a chain link and make this kindness chain longer and longer as the year passes. This activity can help promote kindness, empathy, and gratitude in children.
Kindness Paper Chain
5. SHARING IS FUN
Encourage children to share their favorite memories and experiences about love, kindness, and friendship. This activity can help promote emotional intelligence and communication skills.
6. KINDNESS TREE
In this game, you ask students to write appreciation lines on sticky notes. The teacher will put these sticky notes on a tree in the garden. The best sticky note will get the highest height on a tree and the same as others. In this way, we’ll bring healthy competition in children and the habit of appreciating others in them.
7. STORYTELLING
Children love to listen to stories. We can make them listen to the story of “THE GIVING TREE” By Shel Silverstein. It is a story about a tree and a child who grows up to be an adult. Video Link to the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFQZfeHq9w
8. STORY ENACTMENT
Teachers, after deciding on a story, can enact the story with the help of props. For example, a Giraffe and a Tree tell the story, “WHY GIRAFFE HAS A LONG NECK? “
9. VALENTINE’S DAY NOTICE BOARD CLASSROOM IDEAS
Make a bulletin for your class and make a paper glass for each student to write an experience about sharing and kindness with a theme of ” Share a CUP of KINDNESS.”
10. VALENTINE’S DAY PLAYDOUGH
Use play dough to create gifts for your friends. For example – Shapes of stars, hearts, flowers, and anything they like.
11. VALENTINE’S DAY VIDEO MAKING
Make a video of yours of 2-3 minutes, speaking a few lines about being kind and caring for the people around us.
Overall, as teachers, we can go beyond our understanding of Valentine’s Day and make children understand emotions such as LOVE. In the above article, I’ve tried my best to make love relate to our feeling of being kind to another person. It can have other meanings as well. These activities can help foster positive social relationships, creativity, and emotional intelligence in students while making the school day a little more special for Valentine’s Day. HAPPY LEARNING!!
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- Good books to read: The Sharing Caterpillar https://readingripples.co/book-the-sharing-caterpillar/