The Joy of Teaching

Easy Valentine’s Day activities, art projects, and lessons for the classroom! Create a memorable Valentine’s Day for your students with these simple and fun crafts and activities.

Heart Fingerprint Art

This fun project keeps students’ hands busy and is so fun! Using colored paper, cut out heart shapes as small or big as you want. Make at least one for each student. Then, provide the students with white paper and use a small piece of rolled tape to attach the heart to the middle of the page. Using pink and purple paint, have students polka-dot the page with their fingerprints! Then remove the heart cut-out for a white-shaped heart on the page, surrounded by colorful dots. They can even use the white space to dedicate the valentine to a special someone.

Materials Needed

1. Pink, red, and purple construction paper
2. White 9″ x 11″ construction paper
3. Tape
4. Pink and purple finger paint

Directions:

1. Cut out hearts using the colored construction paper. 
2. Tape the hearts to the center of the white paper.
3. Using the finger paint, make polka dots all over your page.
4. Then, remove the taped heart to reveal a white heart shape in the middle of the page.

Valentine’s Day Art Projects

This unit presents three creative art projects for Valentine’s Day! The first project is making woven paper heart valentine cards, a fun twist on a classic project. The second teaches students how to make a heart-shaped paper basket, so students can carry all their handmade valentines! The last project is making a chain of hearts for a creative valentine. Each unit comes with instructions, a list of materials, and patterns. Get this art project on Teachers Pay Teachers here.

Cupid Tops & Bottoms

This activity is a writing and art project, perfect for Valentine’s Day! Students can follow writing prompts such as describing how to make a valentine, writing about Cupid’s job, and other fun holiday-themed prompts. The unit includes teacher directions and Cupid top & bottom reproducibles. Purchase this writing activity on Teachers Pay Teachers here.

Folded Paper Valentine Holder

This unit includes step-by-step illustrated directions for how to create a paper folding valentine holder, perfect for the holiday! The unit includes a materials list, instructions, and an illustrated completed project. Find this activity on Teachers Pay Teachers here.

Pocket Book for Valentine’s Day

This unit contains detailed directions on how to make a Valentine’s Day pocket book! The unit supplies a variety of activities and patterns so your students can be creative with their project. The pocket book includes information about the holiday, writing prompts, and art projects. Purchase this pocket book unit on Teachers Pay Teachers here.

Valentine’s Day Activities: Writing, Secret Codes, and Puzzles!

This unit has several fun holiday activities: writing contractions, using codes to solve a Valentine’s message, matching sets of words on hearts, writing Valentine’s Day rhymes, and completing a crossword puzzle. Get this unit here, on the Teachers Pay Teachers website.

Valentine Marshmallow Tower

These STEM projects are simple, easy, and fun! All they require is a little tweak in supplies with valentine-themed marshmallows and toothpicks. Challenge your students to build a tower made of just these materials without it falling over. These robust units include: a teacher support page, science concept and visual literacy pages, a challenge page, a suggested materials list, and design and redesign process pages. Everyone gets a sweet reward when they’re finished.
Grade 1 STEM Tower unit
Grade 3 STEM Tower unit

Valentine’s Art Projects: Cupid’s Bow and Tissue Paper Hearts

This unit presents four art projects, like making Cupid’s bow and arrow out of paper plates and pipe cleaners, a broken heart card, a pair of paper love birds, and a tissue paper heart! All projects come with a materials list, directions, and reproducibles. Find these art projects on Teachers Pay Teachers here.

Encourage students to make their own Valentine’s Day crafts and teach them about the history of Valentine’s Day!

A Brief History of Valentine’s Day
History.com provides interesting facts and information to share with students, including the legend of St. Valentine and the origins of Valentine’s Day.

Fun fact: Valentine’s Day is named after St. Valentine, who was a Christian bishop in the Roman Empire, and who is now remembered as a martyr. February 14, Valentine’s Day, was chosen to be the holiday to replace a pagan Roman festival that happened the same day, which celebrated fertility and marriage. People have been writing valentine cards for centuries, the oldest known valentine being a note from a husband to his wife in 1400s England!

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Christine Wooler has experience working with children as a youth soccer coach and summer camp counselor. She is currently studying English Literature and journalism in college. She enjoys exploring educational topics that help students have fun while learning.

Literature Pockets by Evan-Moor immerse students in their reading by engaging them in different activities and projects that relate to the story they just read. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” is a featured unit in Literature Pockets: Folktales & Fairy Tales, grades K–1, and includes fun activities like making a paper-bag bear and taking a porridge survey. Read on to learn about each activity included in this fairy tale unit!

Pocket Label and Bookmark

This unit begins with a pocket label bookmark reproducible, so students can save their page in a fun way! The bookmark has space for the student’s name, a list of story characters, and a fun picture from the story that students can color.

The Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears

This part of the unit provides guidelines and tips about teaching the story, including review questions and additional exploration topics like rhyme, rhythm, sizes, shapes, and comparing and contrasting versions of the fairy tale. This activity includes an illustrated version of the story.

Peekaboo Clues

Students will follow directions to make a “peekaboo” flap book that has questions and answers about the Goldilocks story! This project is simple and only requires construction paper, scissors, glue, and crayons. Reproducible questions and answers are provided.

The Three Bears’ House

Using paper, glue, scissors, crayons, and brown paper lunch bags, students will make a version of the three bears’ house and character cut-outs (reproducibles of character patterns are provided). Students can use their props to reenact the story of Goldilocks!

Do You Like Porridge?

This simple activity puts students in the world of Goldilocks and the Three Bears; they’ll try oatmeal in the classroom and complete a survey (on a porridge bowl-shaped cut-out) with their name and whether or not they liked the oatmeal!

Grocery Bag Bears

In the last activity of this unit, students will get to make a paper-bag bear using construction paper and brown paper lunch bags. Instructions are included as well as a fun activity students can use their handmade bears in.

This unit also includes teacher directions about how to use literature pockets and information about the benefits of using them to teach reading. Instructions are also included on how to use the activities to make a mini book all about folktales and fairy tales.

Find this Goldilocks literature unit on Teachers Pay Teachers! 

Christine Wooler has experience working with children as a youth soccer coach and summer camp counselor. She is currently studying English Literature and journalism in college. She enjoys exploring educational topics that help students have fun while learning.

Paper airplanes are the perfect STEM project for classroom science lessons! It’s an easy and fun lesson idea for large groups of children, and teaches key scientific concepts like aerodynamics, velocity, thrust, speed, and other scientific forces. Teach your students about the different components of flight while making it a fun and memorable experience! As a summer camp counselor, I used this project nearly every week. The children were engaged and interested for long periods of time, designing their own planes, coloring them, trying out different styles, and testing flight!

Listed below are three simple paper airplane designs to include in your STEM aerodynamics lesson.

How to Make Paper Airplanes

This activity will teach your students about aerodynamics, the forces of flight, and the fun of paper airplanes! By making three different models of paper airplanes and testing each of them, students will begin to understand what makes a plane fly and how they can design their very own paper airplane!

You’ll need to gather some materials for paper airplane making and testing. You’ll need:

• Paper
  
  • I’ve found that while children like to use colored construction paper, it is too heavy to fly and a bit more difficult to fold, so I would recommend regular printer paper or lightweight colored paper.
• Paper clips (optional)
• Tape (also optional)
• Colored pencils or markers
  
  • It’s always fun to have the students decorate their planes! You can even have them give their planes a name and write it along the side. Each plane will look very different!
• For testing:
  
  • Tape measure
  • Stopwatch
  • Large outdoor space (preferred)

Once you have all the listed materials, you’ll need an Airplane Comparison Chart, like the one shown below. These are simple to make and reproduce. You simply need three columns and nine rows. Each row will be for an individual trial of one of the airplanes. Each column will measure the time, distance, and average measurements of each plane.

Follow the directions to create three different paper airplane designs.
 
Tips for paper airplane folding: Line up your fold before you crease. Make good creases and tight folds to improve the aerodynamics of the plane. Keep your folding as symmetrical as possible for better flight results. Add tape if you will be throwing the plane multiple times so it doesn’t fall apart after each throw. Staples also work, but will add weight to the plane.

1. Fold your paper hot dog style.
2. Lay the paper out in front of you, portrait style.
3. Fold the top-right corner to the center crease, lining up the edges and creating a triangle.
4. Do the same thing with the left corner.
5. Fold the right side again, along the crease.
6. Do the same thing with the left side.
7. Fold the plane inwards, in half, so the previous folds are on the inside.
8. Fold back one side so the edges align.
9. Flip and repeat with the other wing.

Tip for throwing: For this plane, hold it slightly above your head when throwing to achieve a better liftoff. Use a nice level throw; don’t aim too high or too low.

1. Fold your paper hot dog style.
2. Lay the paper out in front of you, portrait style.
3. Fold the top-right corner to the center crease, lining up the edges and creating a triangle.
4. Do the same thing with the left corner.
5. Fold the point of the plane down, creating a fold along the bottom of the corner triangles. The tip should be about ⅓ of the page from the bottom of the paper.
6. Fold the top-right corner to the center, about one inch above the tip.
7. Repeat with the left corner. This should create a small triangle at the point.
8. Fold the small triangle up.
9. Flip your plane over so that your folds are on the table.
10. Fold your plane in half, left side onto its right, so the edges line up.
11. Fold the top wing down so your edges align.
12. Flip and repeat with other wing.

1. Fold your paper hamburger style.
2. Lay the paper out in front of you, landscape style.
3. Fold the top-right corner point to the center, about an inch and a half from the top of the paper.
4. Repeat with the top-left corner point, forming a wide upside-down triangle at the top of the paper.
5. Fold the top of the paper down, to the tip of the upside-down triangle.
6. Fold the top over itself again, crease well. Repeat this fold twice more.
7. Fold in half, inwards. Unfold.
8. Fold in half, outwards.
9. Make a crease about one inch from the left edge and fold the right side/top wing to the left on this crease. Flip and repeat.
10. Fold 1 inch on edge of wings up.

Hint: For this plane, throw it angled more steeply upwards, instead of straight, to see it glide. This plane needs a hard throw.

Tips for airplane throwing: Most planes require a loose and light grip, and a quick throw. Tilt your plane up slightly before you throw it, and release early. This will help your plane catch the wind and propel itself upwards, using lift force.

1. Fly the planes to test time aloft and distance. Record the information on the Airplane Comparison Chart. (to match chart)
2. After testing, have students try to design their own paper airplane, using components from the planes they’ve already made. Have them name their new plane.
3. Test the students’ planes. Record the test results on the Challenge Chart.

STEM Challenge: Airplane Grade 3

Now that your students are locked in on creating paper airplanes, start to dive into the science behind it! Evan-Moor’s STEM Lessons and Challenges grade 3 features a unit on airplanes and the physical science of air resistance. The unit includes vocabulary like lift, thrust, gravity, drag, and aerodynamics. This STEM unit challenges students to design and create a paper airplane that goes a long distance with accuracy and is available on Teachers Pay Teachers here.
 
Using a premade paper airplane or diagram to demonstrate, discuss the forces of flight with your students. Highlight key vocabulary such as: lift, weight, thrust, and drag.

• Lift is the force that is created by the wings of the airplane, which push air down so the aircraft rises up.
• Weight, along with gravity, pulls down on the plane, opposite the lift.
• Thrust is the force that propels the plane forward, created by the engines of the aircraft.
• Drag is the air resistance that acts opposite the thrust.

Have fun flying your very own paper airplanes! This easy and fun STEM lesson can be adapted for all ages, and paper airplanes never get old. Challenge your students to design their own plane, tweak it for optimal performance, and get creative with their designs and decorations.

Christine Wooler has experience working with children as a youth soccer coach and summer camp counselor. She is currently studying English Literature and journalism in college. She enjoys exploring educational topics that help students have fun while learning.

Happy Chinese New Year! The first day of Chinese New Year starts with the new moon, which appears between January 21 and February 20. The Chinese New Year is decided by China’s lunar calendar and falls on the first day of this calendar. This holiday is celebrated in countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and many more countries around the world. Introduce this international holiday in your classroom with these fun Chinese New Year lessons and activities from Teachers Pay Teachers.

FREE Lesson: Chinese New Year Dancing Dragon and Chinese Lantern (Grades 1–6)

This free activity helps you celebrate Chinese New Year by guiding students through making an accordion-fold “dancing dragon” and paper plate Chinese lanterns. The unit explains the significance of each symbol and provides detailed directions to make each one. Download this free lesson here!

Preparing for a Chinese New Year Short Story (Grades 2–3)

This unit includes a short story about a boy and his family preparing for Chinese New Year. The boy wants to turn his luck around, so he prepares for the holiday by cleaning the house, getting a haircut, and trying hard in school, all of which seem to go wrong. The unit also includes a reading comprehension page, a Chinese calendar page, a short answer activity page, and a parade-mapping activity page! Find this unit on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Chinese New Year: Making Books (Grades 1–6)

This unit includes background information on the holiday, reading recommendations for different reading levels, facts about the Chinese calendar, and instructions for making a Chinese New Year book! The unit provides reproducibles of the Chinese calendar and writing prompts so your students can embrace the holiday! Get this unit here, on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Good Luck Messages and Box Dragon Project (Grades K–3)

This unit teaches students about the traditions of Chinese New Year, including cleaning, good luck messages, and the dragon parade. Students can help clean up the classroom, write positive messages for the bulletin board, and help make a box dragon for your very own dragon parade! The unit includes directions, suggestions, and information on the holiday! Find this unit on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Chinese New Year Cards and Money Pouch (Grades 1–5)

This unit provides instructions for making origami Chinese New Year cards, traditionally made with red paper. It also includes a pattern and template for making a money pouch that holds small coins. Get this unit here, on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Chinese New Year Bulletin Board (Grades K–6)

This unit provides instructions and reproducibles to make a Chinese New Year bulletin board! The bulletin board is red with a paper dragon background, a chart of Chinese zodiac signs, and cut and paste letters that say “Gung Hay Fat Choy!” (Happy New Year!) Find this unit, here, on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Make the most of this opportunity to educate students on this holiday by incorporating some of these activities into your lessons. There are plenty of crafts and activities that celebrate Chinese New Year, many of which practice the traditions of this holiday.

For more information about the history and traditions associated with Chinese New Year, check out: https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/china/spring-festival.

Christine Wooler has experience working with children as a youth soccer coach and summer camp counselor. She is currently studying English Literature and journalism in college. She enjoys exploring educational topics that help students have fun while learning.