5 Engaging Valentine's Day Games For The Classroom - A Fresh Breath on Teaching (2024)

Looking for some fun, interactive Valentine’s Day Games for your next classroom celebration? Check out these 5 enjoyable Valentine’s Day games classroom friendly versions.

Valentine’s Day Interactive Games For A Small Group

Have students that love playing the headbands game?

If you don’t know what the headbands game is, basically, you pick a card that has a word (or small group of words) on it, put it on your forehead, and then ask questions of the other people playing the game to figure out what your word/phrase is.(Side note: if your students love playing this game and need to work on identifying emotions, check out this for another great activity to do with your next social skills group.)

For a festive addition, make everything Valentine’s Day themed. Think drawing a heart, handing out valentines, cupid, eating chocolate…

For students that need extra support coming up with questions to ask in order to guess their word/phrase these Valentine’s Day games questions will help them out.

• Am I a person?
• Do you buy me at the store?
• Am I an object?
• Would I have hearts on me?
• Am I something you do?
• Am I pink or red?
• Do you make me?
• Do you hold me in your hands?

Valentine’s Day Games Google And Digital Formats

Need a digital option for your classroom celebration?

Maybe you are teaching in a virtual or hybrid setting. Or maybe your students are just super motivated with digital activities.

Whatever the reason, look at this valentine’s day games online by making a ‘this or that’ activity for kids to do.

This super fun Valentine’s Day game has students picking which of the two choices they prefer. The two choices would all be things that revolve around Valentine’s Day. I encourage you to use some silly options mixed in with some options that are school related.

The game is simple, and doesn’t require the students to have any materials. Students are presented with two options of things that are similar in style. They then use a hand signal to indicate his/her preference (such as thumbs up or peace sign).

Students absolutely love this simple game. And as a major bonus, it promotes community building within your classroom as students are learning about each other.

Looking to make this Valentine’s Day games virtual activity even easier for you to prepare?

Check out this pre-made Valentine’s Day Game on TeachersPayTeachers here. This Valentine’s Day game on Google Slides™ is super easy to use. You simply make a copy into your own google drive, choose whether you want to add your own avatar (I like to add my personalized bitmoji on this version as my students are super into anything bitmoji) or use a completely pre-made option and display it for students to see.

This Valentine’s Day game online version can be used anywhere, including virtually or for distance learning. That’s a win-win in my book! Find it here.

Valentine’s Day Minute To Win It Games

Here is a great Valentine’s Day group games idea for you: Minute to Win It – Valentine’s style.

Minute to Win It games contain several fairly small tasks that can be done in 60 seconds.

Students can be either broken into two teams or you can divide them up even further into three or four different teams depending on class size. They are then presented with a task and given 60 seconds to complete that task. Whoever completes the task in a minute (or completes it the fastest), gets a point. (You can also give more points to whoever completed it fastest and a lower amount of points for those who still completed the task but weren’t the fastest.) After several different tasks, the team with the most points wins.

To make this a fun valentine theme, try these fun ideas for tasks:

• Stacking candy hearts – whoever has the biggest tower in a minute gets the point
• Making a valentine containing a certain number of materials or written components (for example, make a card with 3 hearts and the saying “Happy Valentine’s Day” on it)
• Throwing candy hearts in a cup from a distance
• Make a love bug by putting together a paper chain with a face on one end – whoever has the most chain links in 60 seconds wins the point (talk about an awesome Valentine’s Day games for kindergarten students here!)
• Sucking up candy hearts and moving them from one plate/bowl to the other using only a straw

Valentine’s Day Games And Activities That Continue Academic Learning

Check out this heart matching game for a super easy, fun activity that requires minimal materials and prep.

All you need to do is cut out a bunch of hearts and write whatever you want students to match on one side of two different hearts to form a matching pair. Then students lay the hearts face down and take turns matching the correct hearts. Whoever has the most hearts at the end wins.

The possibilities are endless with these Valentine Day special games as you can completely customize it to the skill(s) that your students are working on (hello differentiation!).

It could even become part of a reading center or math rotation to tie in an educational component for interactive valentine’s day math games or language arts games.

Some ideas of ways to use this game are:

• upper/lowercase letter matching – excellent for Valentine’s Day games for preschoolers
• number/same number of objects matching
• letter/sound matching – great Valentine’s Day games for kindergarten class fun
• number/dot patterns – use simple patterns for those that need it and irregular patterns for students who need a bit more of a challenge
• Make a 10 (or any other number family) – awesome Valentine’s Day games for 1st graders idea
• Addition or subtraction facts (problem to answer) – fantastic for second graders
• Equivalent fractions matching – right on target for fourth grade

More Happy Valentine’s Day Games

Still looking for more ideas? Check out these valentine’s day themed games:

This post by the Word Nerd gives some great ideas and activities for older students. Make sure to check out the interactive speed dating of a book activity that students are sure to love!

Also, make sure to check out this post from The Education Flyway all about morning meeting activities that incorporate the Valentine’s Day theme.

Happy Teaching!

I help educators meet the diverse academic and social/emotional needs of struggling students so that they can focus on teaching during the day and enjoy life outside of the classroom after the 8 hour work day.

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