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Finding engaging Valentine’s Day activities for your upper elementary math classroom can be a challenge. Students are young enough that they still want to celebrate Valentine’s Day in their classrooms. They’re sensitive to activities that are geared more toward younger students.
Plus, with the holiday in February, you need to make sure any activities have lots of math practice for your students. With end-of-year testing right around the corner, every day counts in covering new material or reviewing your math curriculum.
Here are some fun Valentine’s Day activities that will make the holiday go smoother in your upper elementary math classroom.
1. Valentine’s Day Activities Worksheets for Upper Elementary Math
Math centers are always fun because the students get to move around the room to different centers to complete different tasks. Using differentiated worksheets is helpful because students can start with the easiest (level 1). After they gain confidence they can then work their way through more challenging questions (levels 2 and 3). Finally, they can finish with the most challenging word problems.
Using a Valentine’s Day theme will get them in a festive mood and make the math review more interesting. Math centers with worksheets are also great for sub plans if you know you will have to miss some days of school in February. You might also be interested in Valentine’s Day Decimal Worksheet Bundle.
2. Valentine’s Day Task Cards
Use these Valentine’s Day Editable Labels to create your own task cards for your students. There are 6 different designs and 4 different sizes so there are a lot of options for you. Either type or handwrite the questions for your students. Or, for an extra challenge, ask your students to write the questions.
Task cards are fun because students work on one question at a time while moving around the room. You can have them work individually or with partners. Use task cards as a “Roam the Room” activity where you place task cards all over the room and they have to search for each question before they answer it. Or, you can play scoot where you place a task card on each student desk and students “scoot” from one desk to the next as they answer the question. Finally, you could set up centers where students answer 3-5 task cards at each center. There are so many options with task cards.
3. Math Games Similar to Jeopardy for Valentine’s Day
My classes always enjoy a fun game of Jeopardy. They get to work in teams which takes the pressure off students who may be struggling with a particular math topic (fractions, multiplication, integers, or decimals).
They learn how to work together and they usually have so much fun that they forget they’re practicing math. If you use an editable game like this one, you can play the game on day 1 then ask teams to write new questions to create a second game for day 2.
Find some easy prizes like mini erasers, Homework passes, or Valentine’s Day chocolate for the team that wins and they have additional motivation.
4. Self-Correcting Boom Cards
Boom cards are great if your students need a little downtime after other Valentine’s Day activities. They are a quiet activity that can be used individually or with a partner. They are also great to use either in person or as a remote activity.
Students work at their own pace and all the questions are self-correcting so the students can immediately learn from their mistakes. Students also love how interactive the questions are. For example, with these uncover the picture Boom cards, students tap or click on one of the red rectangles to answer the questions. As they answer correctly, they uncover a Valentine’s Day themed image that is hidden underneath. This deck has 2 different images to uncover for lots of fun practice.
You might be interested in other Valentine’s Day themed Boom Cards for your classroom.
Boom cards are also a big time-saver for teachers because the grading is automatically done for you and you can track student data. It’s also a great way for students to use technology in the classroom.
If you’ve never tried Boom cards before, download some free boom cards first to see how they would work in your classroom. You can also make your own Boom cards to use in your classroom, sell on TpT and also sell on the Boom Learning website.