Be My (Cyber) Valentine
Valentine's Day Lessons that Incorporate Technology
Use these Valentine's Day lessons to showcase your students' creativity, talent, and computer skills.
Valentine’s Day provides many opportunities for promoting computer skills in the classroom. Students from kindergarten age to high school are enamored by this holiday. The little kids like designing hearts, while the older ones are discovering romance and need an appropriate outlet for it! Here are some ideas that incorporate Valentine’s Day into the technology component of your lessons:
- Pre-K to Kindergarten
Online coloring pages help promote color recognition, and these pages also help improve recognition of various animals. Have the student print out the pictures to discuss and share with classmates.
- 1st to 3rd Grade
The yearly Valentine’s Day card exchange is in full force in the primary grades. Perhaps introducing students to graphing on MS Excel is a great idea here. Have students exchange their valentine’s cards and then have them categorize them. How many puppy valentines did you receive? How many Spongebob valentines did you receive? Total the amount of valentines received in each category and have students create either individual graphs on Excel or one classroom one, depending on the grade level. Caution: Do not, so that no one’s feelings get hurt, graph the amount each child received in total (for example: Susie received twenty and Bob received four—we do not want Bob to feel like he is unpopular.).
- 4th to 5th Grade
At this level, students are starting to really express themselves creatively and are becoming more mature technologically. Students can write a Valentine’s Day poem or essay for their parents and then incorporate it into a card produced on MS Publisher. The student can print out two copies—one for Mom and Dad, and one to hang in the classroom (if your students truly admire you, maybe they will write one for you as well!).
- Middle Grades
The Internet and exploring what search engines have to offer is appealing to the middle school student. Getting them to explore and write about educational subjects becomes increasingly difficult! However, keeping students of this challenging age focused by narrowing down the topic to a specific one is an effective strategy. Have students research, via the Internet, the history of Valentine’s Day and development of its traditions may be an enjoyable project for some students. To extend the activity, have students cite the sources of their information. Discourage copying and pasting of text and be certain that students paraphrase the ideas they use.
- High School
Love is in the air, and in school, that of where we would rather keep it! At this age, students insist on expressing themselves and many times, very publicly. A fundraiser, via the school, is an activity that boosts morale and school spirit. Students can choose a cause, such as helping out a family in the community that has fallen on hard times (with their permission—for example, a student died of ours died, and we had a similar fundraiser to raise money for the family). Students would then use the school website, with the assistance of the webmaster, to post Valentine’s messages to their sweethearts on the website. The webmaster should screen the content, so that nothing inappropriate or inflammatory is posted. Parents should be encouraged to view the messages, to get a peek into their children’s school lives.
