I’ve written blog posts about the importance of setting a good feeling tone in the classroom, making learning fun, and affective learning (find out why it’s the most effective learning of all). This post goes right along with that notion that you can deliberately advance students’ learning just by making them feel good and relaxed.

Valentine’s Day, and all February for that matter, is one more opportunity to focus on the positives such as kindness and love, while engaging students’ emotions and having fun! So, here are some reading, writing, and language ideas for a Valentine’s Day in ELA you’ll love.

Here are some ideas for Valentine’s Day in ELA:

1) Express love or appreciation in an Ode: According to the dictionary, an “ode” is “a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter – a poem meant to be sung.”

And, according to poets.org, an ode was “originally accompanied by music and dance, and later reserved by the Romantic poets to convey their strongest sentiments—is a formal address to an event, a person, or a thing not present.” Wow, who knew? (I didn’t.)

I recommend keeping it simple and just having students write freely with a simple abab or abca rhyme scheme…but I also found this great lesson online that looks very helpful for both teachers and students writing odes.

So, have students brainstorm all the things and/or people and pets they love and appreciate. Ask some leading questions, such as What’s your favorite thing to do after school? or What food or drinks do you LOVE? or Who do you love like a sister? or Who shows you love?

2) Shower with Compliments: I got this idea from “The Cult of Pedagogy,” a TPT seller who has inspired me. She says students take turns of about 10-15 minutes each being in the “hot seat” while their classmates write compliments on the board behind them. She says you have to see it to appreciate its full impact. What a great idea. I’m thinking the teacher needs a turn too!

3) Sticky Note Love: I have a friend (a mother of 5) who covers her kids’ doors with sticky notes that show what she loves about that kid – on or around Valentine’s Day (or maybe it’s birthdays…). Anyway, I’m sure this can somehow be incorporated into Language Arts. For example, instruct students to write 10 adjectives (one word each) to express what they love about a person, thing, whatever…

4) Idioms about the heart and love: My heart really goes out to you…especially if you have teenagers acting head over heels in love or who have just gotten their hearts broken…One of my blog posts lists 20 idioms about love and the heart. It gets students thinking why the heart is associated with love anyway. These are fun to read, to incorporate into writing, or to research their origins. It also links to a free printable that gets students to write literal meanings in a language activity.

5) ELA Science Fusion “Your Cardiovascular System” (Mini-Unit or Lite version text only): Relevant, interesting, engaging scientific and technical informational text and literacy in science activities for English Language Arts or science class or both. Thoroughly researched, highly visual, creative and fun ELA connections, extension activities, vocabulary building, a song to sing along to (a song I LOVED as a kid whenever teachers would show us the video), fascinating informational text all about how our circulatory system works.

6) Shakespeare in Love: I found a GREAT post about 20 of Shakespeare’s quotes about love that tells all about the context they are set in and their meaning. I also found this list of 55 of Shakespeare’s most famous love quotes. And here is a list of his sonnets. How about have students each choose a different sonnet and quote to analyze? They can identify: mood, speaker, tone, imagery, metaphor, rhyme scheme, etc.

7) Write a Love Letter to a Book or Author: Have you ever seen that skit on the Tonight Show in which Jimmy Fallon writes “thank you notes” to random things? It cracks me up. So this is like that, sort of. Have students write to a book or author showering them with love and specific compliments.

8) The History of Valentine’s Day: As simple of a concept that Valentine’s Day is, it turns out the history is ancient, not fully documented (and full of hearsay), yet is quite interesting (like how greeting cards came about) and even contends that Valentine’s Day was meant to replace a festival we would call “inappropriate” these days. I wrote the text for grades 6 and up to explore these concepts. They’re not really well suited to younger elementary kids.

And, don’t forget that February is also Black History Month. Check out these great ideas for reading, writing, and language for not only Black History Month in February – but all year long.