Decorating Your Classroom for Valentine’s Day
 Image via Wikipedia Decorating your classroom for any holiday is fun, but Valentine’s Day is especially exciting. There are so many decorations you can include in your classroom’s decor to make it fun and cheerful. Try some of the decorating ideas below and, before long, you will find your room looking bright and festive with Valentine’s Day decorations.
Hanging Heart People This fun activity lets your students express themselves by creating a self-portrait heart person. From large pieces of construction paper, cut a big heart. Use strips of construction paper, folded like an accordion for the arms and legs. Cut out small hearts for the hands and feet and glue them on the ends of the accordion arms and legs. Decorate the large heart with eyes and mouth. Punch a hole at the top of the large heart and hang the heart people from the ceiling. If possible, hang each child’s heart person over his or her chair. Your classroom will quickly take on a festive look that will be hard to beat.  Photo by ellie (flickr.com) Start a Conversation While Conversation Hearts are usually small, this year enlarge them by creating poster board size pastel hearts to hang around your room. By decorating your class with a twist on a favorite candy tradition, you capture your students’ interest immediately. Replace the typical messages of love with story starters, affirmations, vocabulary words, and poems. For extra fun, create a large Conversation Hearts box and fill it with creative writing prompts that your students can pick each morning for journal work. Hearts A Plenty What would Valentine’s Day be without hearts? Create paper hearts and string them together to hang over your white board, doorway and window frames. Colorful red, pink, and white paper chains can also be used to add a little something extra in the way of decorations. Hang hearts on the windows, on the backs of students’ chairs, and anywhere else there is space available. Your students are sure to delight in the plethora of hearts that decorate the room. What are some of your favorite ways to decorate the classroom? Share your ideas with us below. If you have a picture you would like to share, post it to our Facebook page!
 Tweet a Sweet Note Cards Congratulations! You have stumbled upon a Really Good Secret Giveaway! Leave a relevant comment on this article before 11:59PM EST on January 18, 2011 and be entered to win a pack of Tweet a Sweet Note Cards. One random winner from all valid entries will be announced on our Facebook page on Wednesday, January 19, 2011. Good luck and thank you for being a part of our Really Good Online Community! We appreciate you! Bummed because you’re reading this after January 18th? Don’t worry! We have Secret Giveaways each week – just keep reading every day!  |
At Really Good Stuff, we're committed to bringing you the best teaching resources online and off. We under-
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:47 am
Love the ideas for decorating! With February being such a short month with so many holidays and events to cover, I sometimes give Valentines Day the short end of the stick! But its a nice way to review caring about each other!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:53 am
I would love to win!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:56 am
I love these ideas! I have the kids decorate bags that they keep on the window sill to get valentines as mail! We also sort hearts and I think we will make those heart people this year!!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 9:21 am
I never thought about stringing hearts together! That’s a great idea!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 9:38 am
I’m sharing an idea I got from my cooperating teacher (who taught kindergarten, as do I) when I first did my student teaching, and have used ever since. I love it because it ties in SO many curriculum areas!
Our 100th day usually falls near Valentine’s Day, and so we are often practicing counting to 100 in various ways at the same time as we are doing our Valentine activities. We have also been learning about the different ways that animals cope with winter cold and changes in the weather here in the Northeast.
For our project, we begin during our Language Arts by practicing a poem that I have copied onto chart paper called “I Made 100 Valentines” (see below). Later, during our project time, we cut out red hearts and glue copies of the poem into the center of them, punch a hole in the top, and tie a long (8″?) pink or white piece of yarn through it to use as a hanger. Finally, for math, I have 8×10 cardstock on which I have printed 10 circles that I pass out to each of the children. I put dishes of petstore-quality sunflower seeds in the center of their tables and have them count out 10 seeds into each of the circles. Once they have done that, they raise their hands for me to check. They count their 10 groups by ten to 100, then slide them into a ziplock baggie, add their heart-poem decoration, and take it home to hang on a tree, bush, or other outdoor location to be a gift for hungry winter birds or animals.
The children love doing the activity, and it is a nice way for them to connect with home and their environment. I’m so grateful for having had a wonderful cooperating teacher all those years ago to share her ideas with me!
Here is the poem:
I made a pretty valentine.
Just one did I say?
I made a HUNDRED valentines
One cold and wintry day.
I didn’t put my name on them
Or any other words
Because my valentines were seeds
For February birds.
Commented On January 18th, 2011 9:56 am
I looooove the large conversation hearts idea! I got a cricut machine for Christmas and that would be a perfect project for that! Inside the hearts I think I’ll write sights words. How cute thanks for the idea!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 10:27 am
Thank you for the great ideas! I’ll bookmark this to return to at the beginning of February!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 7:04 pm
I love decorating my classroom for the holidays. Great ideas!!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 7:45 pm
Love all the holiday ideas. One thing I do is have my kids to decorate a shoe box, cereal box, or something else at home then bring it in to use as their valentine’s holder. Crossing my fingers I will win sometime soon!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:29 pm
Love the heart people….. Remember making them when I was a kid!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:30 pm
I love these ideas. I always love having my students create Valentine’s bags but I have them relate to our school theme every year. I look forward to seeing what they come up with this year, with our theme being Music Through the Decades with our class focusing on the 90′s era.
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:31 pm
I love the conversation hearts idea! I will definitely be making a box with prompts for my reading class students to choose from each morning while we get settled. What a great way to get them to write more each day!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:34 pm
I love these ideas, especially the conversation hearts. They will go well with a graphing math activity I have using the candies. My kids can make their own conversation heart to hang up!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:34 pm
I love decorating for Valentine’s Day! Great ideas!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:34 pm
I love the idea of the heart people! I think instead of a self portrait I’ll have my second graders create a Heart Character and write a paragraph about them.
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:37 pm
I like to transition from Christmas to winter to Valentine’s Day! There’s a bunch that you can overlap and make decorating easier on everyone!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:39 pm
Love the heart people idea! So cute! I like the other ideas posted as well! Great ideas!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:40 pm
I am just getting ready to decorate for Valentine’s Day. I love the idea of the hanging heart people.
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:40 pm
Thank you for the ideas. Our kids are getting together in mulit-aged “families” to make decorations and Valentines for our local nursing home residents. I was looking for some ideas that would be appropriate for K-6 grades. I was thinking along the lines of the Valentine people but I also like the stringing the hearts together.
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:41 pm
I love the conversation heart writing prompt ideas!
Each year, I give my pre-k students hearts in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors and ask them to use them to make me a “Love Bug”. They are allowed to utilize any other classroom materials they wish to aid in creativity. I use them for our main February bulletin board with the caption “Pre-K Love Bugs”. I’m writing a post and will include pictures soon on http://www.littleilluminations.blogspot.com/
Thanks for all you share!!! <3
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:43 pm
My favorite way to decorate for Valentine’s Day is to have the students draw and/or color pictures & hang them up around the classroom.
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:44 pm
I am going to use the conversation hearts idea for writing prompts. What a great idea!!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:45 pm
I love the heart people idea! As soon as we come back for Christmas break I have a Valentine Card Station for free time kids can use to make valentine cards for a program called Hearts for Kids through a local radio station where they give the cards to children in the hospital on Valentines day.
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:56 pm
Great Holiday Ideas! Kelly and I have the same idea regarding decorating a cereal box or a shoe box for the kids’ Valentine’s. This is my first time with a student who does NOT celebrate Valentine’s Day. I’m a little worried about it..
Commented On January 18th, 2011 8:56 pm
I loved the idea of stringing the hearts together. I, like Elise, have a Cricut machine and the Love Struck cartridge which will help in cutting out the hearts! Thanks for the idea!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 9:19 pm
Thank you for the ideas! I love to incorporate doing nice things for others during February and showing “love” so we write Random Acts of Kindness students observe each other doing and hang them in the classroom for all to see!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 9:19 pm
I have a low bookcase by the doorway to my Kindergarten room. For every holiday or season, I drape a colorful scarf over it, and place books and decorations that pertain to that holiday on it. For Valentine’s Day, I have a red, pink and white scarf, some artificial red roses, and a white bear holding a red heart. With these items I will display several different Valentine’s Day books. I always get a lot of compliments on these displays, and it lets the parents see a glance what we are unit or theme we are working on.
Commented On January 18th, 2011 9:34 pm
I love all the Valentine’s Day ideas. My students made the heart people last year and they were so cute. I like the conversation hearts idea. I will use these! Also, we have a student in the hospital and it will be great to send valentines to her. Thanks for the ideas!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 9:36 pm
We’re doing a bulletin board titled “Kindess Fills the Air” My first graders are trying to complete 100 random acts of kindness between this week when we learned about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream and Valentines day….it’s so much fun because the kids have to nominate eachother. They can also do an act of kindness at home and be nominated by their parents!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 9:48 pm
I was thinking of using the Heart People as a book report project where the kids had to make a character from a book.
Commented On January 18th, 2011 9:50 pm
For Valentine’s Day, I do a writing activity the children really enjoy. First, all the students’ names are put into a container for a drawing. Each child draws out a classmate’s name. On pink or red cut-out hearts, the child writes complimentary sentences about “Their Secret Valentine”. As a closing activity, we read these aloud, and everyone guesses the identity of the special Valentine. These hearts are then used as decorations for the door or bulletin board.
Commented On January 18th, 2011 10:02 pm
Love the ideas! I always check out the dollar section, in some of my favorite stores, and find so many great things to decorate with. I find things like rugs, stickers, trinkets, etc.
Commented On January 18th, 2011 10:07 pm
I have used the conversation heart idea before, and my kids loved it! We used them as writing prompts and picking a heart out of the pile kept them excited to see what they’d be writing about. Love it!!!
Commented On January 18th, 2011 10:08 pm
I find it difficult in 1st grade find it difficult to decorate the classroom. Mostly because not much wall space and what I have needs to have district specific items. I usually send home decorations and tell my students to make their room or a special area for someone. I do have fun activities with a small social “party” at the end of the day. We do math related activities like graphing with the store bought heart boxes. I always as for parent involvement so that it is less $$ on me…
Commented On January 18th, 2011 10:09 pm
Valentine’s day is so exciting in my kindergarten classroom
Most of them have never had Valentine’s day at school before, so it’s so much fun! We graph conversation hearts, play games, and read our valentines 
Commented On January 18th, 2011 10:45 pm
I like the idea of creating conversation hearts and putting vocabulary or spelling words on them. My struggle this year is adapting holiday things for those that don’t celebrate these holidays because of their religion.
Commented On January 19th, 2011 7:06 am
Love the article ideas and the ideas from everyone. I get my 1st graders to randomly pick a classmate from our “name sticks” and they secretly write a letter to their “mystery person”. We share our letters to our classmates to remind them of why they are special…they love to hear from each other and by picking from a “name stick”, they get a chance to write to someone that they might not normally socialize with each day!
Commented On January 8th, 2012 2:31 pm
Cute ideas! I like the featured product too! It’s good to remind kids why others think they are neat.
Commented On February 12th, 2012 3:12 pm
I really like the idea of the heart people! I am thinking that we will make these instead of the different size hearts mobile I had planned