Teaching elementary-aged children is a rewarding experience, but as educators and parents, finding the time and resources to create engaging lessons can be a challenge. That's where this podcast comes in. Welcome to Naturally Teaching Elementary.

I'm Victoria Zablocki, a certified elementary teacher turned outdoor educator. With over a decade of experience coaching teachers on effective teaching methods, I'm passionate about teaching the whole child with authentic and place-based experiences in school and home settings. Join me as we explore our strategies for teaching with practical teaching tips, insightful interviews, picture book reviews, and more.

So let's grow together. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Naturally Teaching Elementary podcast. My name is Victoria Zablocki and I'm your host.

So Valentine's Day is fluttering our way, whether we're ready for it or not. Honestly, I've been seeing Valentine's decorations and candy in stores since the day after Christmas, which is way too early in my opinion. But it still has the holiday on my mind.

So some of us are not even thinking about Valentine's Day class party ideas yet, while others have already got their to-do list started. So for those of you that fall into the latter group, I'm here to give you some ideas. For those of you who haven't started yet, listen now and revisit the episode again in a few weeks when you're ready to get moving.

So this episode is going to be a little different than my Halloween and winter solstice party episodes. Instead of giving you categories of activity types with suggestions, I'm going to share a Next Generation Science Standard for each grade K-5 that could provide you a standards-aligned Valentine's Day theme, and then a suggestion for three centers, including an activity, a game and a craft. So deciding on a distinctive theme can help you focus and create a cohesive and enjoyable experience for you, your students and your caregiver volunteers.

There are many ways to use your curricular goals as inspiration for your Valentine's Day celebration, and tying your theme to your science curriculum can actually enhance your theme and overall experience. Also, if the party falls at the end of your unit, it's a great way to celebrate your students' hard work and learning.

[2:17]

So my teaching tip today is one of the best ways to incorporate all of the traditional classroom party experiences is to plan them as centers, which is why I'm getting you started with ideas for three centers tied to the theme that I'm suggesting. Creating centers with caregivers to help supervise can save you a major headache. When planning crafts, take into account the amount of time each craft will take, how easy it is to reset materials if you are doing them in centers, and how your cleanup will go.

[2:34]

All right, so starting with kindergarten, the Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled was K-ESS3-3: Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and or other living things in the local environment.

So, how does this relate to Valentine's Day? This standard just shouts the theme “We love nature.” By embracing nature and having a desire to take care of it, we naturally find solutions to reduce the impact of humans on it, creating our future stewards.

So for an activity, you could create sensory bins for your early childhood learners. Fill short boxes or trays with things from nature that your students would love. You could use real objects from nature like leaves, acorns, or pine cones, or you could make a run to the dollar store and pick up faux options as well.

I like to use plastic animals for the opportunity for pretend play in the sensory bin as well. You could do a themed nature sensory bin like your February snowy landscape if you live in an area with snow. I've got a sensory bin put together right now that's snow-based and has white pom poms, cotton balls, faux pine cones, and other conifer tree parts, and winter animals like a squirrel, a snowy owl, a turkey, a deer, a black bear, and more.

You could also do an aquatic sensory bin based on a body of water near you. I've done this before as well and had small rocks to represent the water's substrate, flat blue marbles like you would use in an aquarium to represent water. Personally, I wanted the bin to stay dry so I didn't use water or water beads, but you could if you wanted to.

I got cattails from the dollar store that I cut short and put in there. I used green craft foam to cut out lily pads, and then I added plastic animals such as the frog life cycle, dragonflies, fish, and more.

For the game for this theme, I suggest playing Simon Says with different ways your students can help nature. I like to switch it to Mother Nature Says to add a little more natureness, but you could stick with Simon Says if you prefer.

You're going to need an adult to run this game for you, so hopefully you have a caregiver volunteer or a para-pro to lead this center for you. This center would probably be best to take place at your classroom carpet so that your students can move their bodies without bumping into each other or tables, and make sure to run through the rules with your center leader so that they can relay them to your students, such as move in one spot and only move when you hear Simon says.

Also provide them with a cheat sheet of commands to give so that they can focus on which students follow the rules and not necessarily on what to say. You want to provide them with commands that a kindergartner could actually accomplish to take care of nature so that you're empowering them.

So some examples of commands you could give your center leader would be: “plant a seed”, “pick up trash”, “ride a bike”, “catch and release a fish”, “turn off the faucet when brushing your teeth”, “turn off the lights”, “walk”.

And I'd choose not to give actions for each of the commands because your center leader likely won't have a lot of time to teach a bunch of actions to your students, your kindergartners probably won't remember more than a couple of actions anyway, and the goal of the game is to check on their listening skills. “Did the leader say, Simon says?” Not how well they can remember actions. This also gives them the chance to be creative and share how they interpret these commands, which is kind of fun.

And since kindergartners are impatient, and this is a just for fun game, only have your center leader keep kids out, quote unquote, for two or three commands, then let everyone back into the game.

For a craft for this theme, provide your students recyclables to create costume parts for their own eco hero character. I've seen kids make superhero cuffs out of toilet paper tubes and jet packs out of two-liter soda bottles.

I've seen kiddos make necklaces with special powers and utility belts. The possibilities truly are endless. You could also print out superhero mask templates on cardstock paper and let them design their own mask to wear.

It would be helpful to have a caregiver volunteer at the center to help with cutting and putting yarn on the mask for the children to wear. It would also be helpful to have masking tape at the center for the children to be able to stick recyclables together. Side note, if you do do this craft, it would be super fun to have your students put on all of their eco hero gear and take a class picture. And if you do that, tag me on Instagram at naturally.teaching because I would love to see it!

[6:44]

For first grade, the Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled was 1-PS4-1: Plan and conduct investigations to provide evidence that vibrating materials can make sound and that sound can make materials vibrate. So how does this relate to Valentine's Day?

This standard gets me thinking about hearts, so a fun theme could be hearts beat. So an activity for this would be a heart sensory bin. So put together your sensory bins in short trays or boxes to give your students a fun sensory experience.

Try to provide different textures of hearts. So grab cheap hearts from places like dollar stores in a variety of different material types like fabric, plastic, stress balls, and more. And then consider including different sized hearts too. You could also have fun fillers like noodles, gems, water beads, and more.

A fun game for this theme would be to provide your students with drums, either made from recyclables or real drums, and have them match heartbeats played off of YouTube. So I searched the term “heartbeats sound effect slow to fast” on YouTube and found a video called “Slow to Fast Heartbeat Sound Effect” by Life Paws - Relaxing Sounds.

It's a 50 second video that pictures a traditionally shaped heart that moves when the heartbeat sounds, and I'll make sure to link that in the show notes. As a side note, I'm recording this in January 2025, so if you're listening to this at a much later date, just know that the link that I'm posting for a heartbeat video may not work anymore, but I'm sure you can find another option pretty easily.

For the craft for this theme, you can provide your students clean recyclables, rubber bands, cellophane or plastic wrap, loose parts like split peas or rice, and give them a chance to make their own drum or other instrument that they can make heartbeats with. And if you don't think you could collect enough recyclables, on your own, before Valentine's Day, consider leaving a box or a bin in the teacher's lounge or send out a call to the caregivers of your students to donate.

[8:33]

For second grade, the Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled was 2-LS2-2: Develop a simple model that mimics the function of an animal in dispersing seeds or pollinating plants. So how does this relate to Valentine's Day?

In nature, there are certain insect species that use one or two types of plants for their larva to grow on, and those plants are called host plants. So a theme that could fit this standard is the perfect pair, insects and their host plants. So 2nd graders are still considered early childhood learners, but are kind of on their way out of that.

So an activity for this theme would be to create a sensory bin for them, but with a little variation. I would suggest setting out the book Flower Talk: How Plants Use Color to Communicate by Sara Levine, or How Plants Talk by Helena Harastova, or Flowers Are Calling by Rita Gray, in the space that your students will be experiencing this center. And I'll make sure to put links for those books in the show notes as well.

Also put out a bin with smelly things, colorful things, things with lines, and differently shaped objects. In the same bin or in another bin include examples of pollinators, either pictures or plastic representations. And these could be insects, bats, hummingbirds, or orioles.

When your students are at this station, have them try to build a flower that is “talking” to one of the animals based on the information they find in the books. Does their animal like pink flowers? Does it like a smelly flower? Does it like long tubular flowers? Use inspiration from those books to be able to build a small model out of random objects.

For a game for this theme, you could put together a memory game. For this, I would make pairs of cards with pictures of an insect and their host plant with a colored border that would work for self-correction. So what I mean by that is one card would have the monarch butterfly and it would have an orange border around the picture. And then the other matching card would be a milkweed plant with an orange border around it so that way when they flip the two cards over, they know that they match because they both have the same color border.

After you create all of those cards, you could print out enough for pairs of students to play against each other and it would give them a fun game while also exposing them to insects and the plants that help their larvae grow.

If you'd prefer something more active though, I have an outdoor pollination scavenger hunt in my Teachers Pay Teachers store that you could adapt to be used inside. You could print pictures of the items on the scavenger hunt and place them around the classroom for the students to find or you could put 3D representations of each of those spaces around the classroom for the students to search for. Then in the spring, you could actually take that scavenger hunt outside and see if you could find examples in your own schoolyard.

For the craft for this theme, you could give the chance to design an insect and its host plant. This doesn't have to be based on a real-life example of a host plant and insect, but is more or less for fun. So you could have pictures of real-life examples on display for them, for inspiration, like milkweed and monarchs or willows and mourning cloak butterflies, but they don't need to copy them. This is more for application of knowledge and creative flair. All you need for this activity is some paper, pencils, and coloring utensils. Easy peasy and fun.

[11:45]

For 3rd grade, the Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled was 3-PS2-3: Ask questions to determine cause and effect relationships of electric or magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other.

So how does this relate to Valentine's Day? This standard screams, “magnets attract.” So as an activity for this theme, have one of your centers be at the classroom carpet and give your students a chance to dance by doing the Compass Slide.

Compasses have magnets in their needle, and the way that they work is that the positive or north pole of the compass's needle is attracted to our geographical north, which is Earth's magnetic south. If you didn't know, Earth's magnetic poles are inverted or the opposite, and its magnetic north is actually our geographical south. So thanks to magnets, we can tell our north from our south.

The compass slide is a fun way to celebrate directions and is a parody of the Cha Cha Slide. I used it multiple times with students from first grade through fifth grade, and it was a lot of fun. Again, keep in mind that I'm recording this in January 2025, and this video could disappear at any moment, but for now, I will link it in the show notes.

For a game for this theme, you could put together makeshift fishing poles with dowels, string, and magnets, then gather a variety of materials that are magnetic and others that are not, and you could even get real Valentine's Day-ey and make all of the materials related to the holiday, but you don't have to. Let your students use the fishing poles to fish magnetic objects out of a box or off of a table, and they'll have a lot of fun while also covertly doing an experiment.

For the craft for this theme, you could provide your students paper, pencils, and coloring utensils to make magnet maps. At this center, your students will create a map that includes roads, trails, or waterways that they can maneuver a paper vehicle, seed, animal, etc. through. They will simply illustrate an aerial map with space to move something along drawn lines.

They'll also have to make a paper version of the thing that they want to move across their map. This will be a small drawing. They don't want to make it too big, or it will be hard to maneuver through the trails, roads, etc.

Once they've illustrated their map and created their moving piece, they'll put a paper clip on the moving piece and then place it on top of the map somewhere along the paths. Then, they'll use a strong magnet underneath the map to move the moving piece along the pathways. Once they're done, they get to take their map and their moving piece home, and then they can use magnets at home to continue the fun.

[14:18]

For fourth grade, the Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled was 4-LS1-1: Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. So how does this relate to Valentine's Day? Valentine's Day is often decorated with hearts on hearts.

Well, hearts are a very important internal structure that helps with survival of animals. So trade the cutesy hearts for a focus on animal hearts. If you do go with an animal hearts theme, check out the clip art artist, The Naturalist on Teachers Pay Teachers.

They have a vertebrate hearts comparative clip art for free that includes pictures of each organism and the inside of their hearts. These diagram-like clip art images are not gruesome, but provide an interesting comparison and could make for some great heart themed games and more. They have an animal image and a heart image for the Dollar sunfish, Hispid cotton rat, Northern zigzag salamander, Speckled caiman (a kind of crocodile), Texas river scooter (a kind of turtle), and a Townsend solitaire (a kind of bird).

To be honest, the fish heart is quite interesting to look at. The same clipart artist has other paid anatomy sets that could be helpful if you're looking for some other images to help you with this standard, but I'm going to use the heart one to inspire these next three activities.

So for an activity for this theme, give your fourth graders a sensory experience by providing them with Playdoh or a play to create models of different animal hearts. You can print out those clipart images I mentioned and encourage your students to create 3D models of one or more of the animal hearts pictured. If you're wondering if your fourth graders will embrace their inner child to play with Playdoh, let me reassure you they will. I have a fifth grader at home that still loves to get her hands on anything moldable.

For the game for this theme, you're going to have your students play Rock, Paper, Scissors - Animal Heart Edition. So your students can be a cold-blooded animal of their choosing. For example, they could be a snake, a turtle, a frog, a salamander, a fish, etc.

Each child will start as a cold-blooded animal that's asleep for the winter and has a very slow heart rate. They will find other very slow moving animals that are laying on the floor and they will rock, paper, scissors, shoot in a slow-mo voice. This represents how slow the animal's heart is beating while brumating or sleeping.

If they're the loser of that round, they remain on the ground moving slowly. If they're the winner of that round, then they get to be a cold-blooded animal that's awake but in the shade. They get to crawl on the ground to show that they're active but not super fast since they're in the shade and not the sun.

They will rock, paper, scissors, shoot at a typical speaking pattern to show their average heart rate for being active but not in the sun. If they're the loser of that round, they'll go back to sleep and lay down on the ground and move slowly. If they're the winner of that round, they'll stand up straight to show that they're a cold-blooded animal in the sun with a higher heart rate and more energy.

They'll rock, paper, scissors, shoot quickly to represent their increased heart rate. If they're the loser of that round, they go back to crawling and representing a cold-blooded animal that's active but in the shade. If they're the winner of that round, they can cheer and either get to start over as a sleeping cold-blooded animal or hang out pretending to be the animal of their choosing in the game space.

For your craft, you can put together a felt heart dissection template for your kids. I did this once with frog dissection for kiddos about this age and they loved it. All you have to do is get felt that is the different colors of the heart that you want them to create, and then provide them with cut templates of the shapes they need to trace and cut out.

If you don't want to freehand the parts of the heart, then you could download those free clipart images I mentioned and use those to make the parts they would cut out. Alternatively, if you're not feeling like a heart dissection kit is the way to go, you could use the black and white images from the clipart set to create coloring pages that your students could color.

[18:14]

For 5th grade, the Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled was 5-PS2-1: Support an argument that the gravitational force exerted by Earth on objects is directed down. So how does this relate to Valentine's Day? This standard says to me the theme “attracted to the Earth” and comes with a whole lot of potential.

Experimenting with gravity is a whole lot of fun. So give your students a chance to explore the effects of gravity and air resistance by providing them an elevated space to drop a variety of materials to the ground. This would probably make sense to do over your classroom carpet, so there's less of a chance for object breakage.

But you'll want to provide them a bin of things that are a variety of shapes, textures, weights, and more to drop from an elevated height to see how they fall. Make sure you only provide them materials you're okay with them dropping. If you have stopwatches and want to give them the chance to drop and time how long the objects take to reach the ground, you may find your students won't want to leave this center.

If you're feeling a little bit crazy and you have non-carpeted floors, for your game you could give your students the chance to have slime gravity races. For this, you could pick up some different density slimes from Five Below or a local dollar store and have your students put their slime at the edge of their desks or a table and let go at the same time. Then they could watch as gravity pulls the slime toward the floor and whoever reaches the floor first wins. This could get noisy, but it's a fun way to test the differences of viscosity and how gravity interacts with the different materials.

For this theme's craft, you could do gravity-based paintings. I personally like drip paintings. They're probably your least messy option and most likely to dry before the end of the day. For these, you'll want paint brushes, tempera paint, paper plates, plastic spoons, bowls or cups for water, construction paper or cardstock paper, and small trays or boxes for your students to work within. Hopefully, you'll have a caregiver volunteer or two that can help at this station, but someone will pour paint on your students' paper plate, which they will use a plastic spoon to add a little bit of water to and mix.

This will help thin the paint a little bit so that it drips easier. Your students will put their paper in their box or tray and scoop up some paint to hold over top of their paper. Thanks to gravity, the drips will fall down and create some amazing abstract art for your students to take home at the end of the day.

[20:35]

So in a nutshell, we talked about taking your traditional Valentine's Day themes that involve love and flipping them to have a science twist instead. We talked about a standard from Next Generation Science Standards for grade K-5 that could inform your science theme, as well as three centers for each theme, including an activity, a game, and a craft.

For kindergarten, we talked about a “We love nature” theme with a nature-themed sensory bin, a Simon Says game with commands that help take care of nature, and creating eco hero costumes from recyclables and printed masks.

First grade, we talked about a “hearts beat” theme, with a heart-themed sensory bin, a game where they drum with a heartbeat, and a drum or another instrument craft made from recyclables.

For second grade, we talked about a “perfect pair” theme about insects and host plants, with a flower communication building sensory bin, a memory game with insects and their host plants, or adapting an outdoor scavenger hunt to use inside, and designing an insect and host plant pair craft.

For third grade, we talked about a “magnets attract” theme, with dancing to the Compass Slide from YouTube, going fishing with magnetic fishing poles, and a magnetic map craft.

For fourth grade, we talked about an “animal hearts” theme about internal structures, with creating animal heart models with Playdoh, Rock, Paper, Scissors -Animal Heart edition, and an animal heart felt dissection craft.

For fifth grade, we talked about an “attracted to the Earth” theme about gravity, with dropping objects from an elevated height, a slime gravity race game, and a gravity drip painting.

And if you'd like more ideas for your party, check out my article, “Beyond Hearts and Cupids: A Guide to Alternative Valentine's Day Parties for Elementary Teachers”. There's more activity, craft, and even food ideas in that article to consider. And don't forget if you're looking for an active game for your insect and host plant party, check out my Outdoor Pollination Scavenger Hunt that you can adapt to play inside now and then outside in the spring.

So thanks for taking time to listen today. I know you're busy and I truly appreciate the time you take to tune in. If you have any questions, wonderings, or science Valentine's Day class party ideas that you use, get ahold of me on Instagram at Naturally.Teaching, or you can email me at victoria@naturallyteaching.com.

And don't forget to check out the show notes for this episode at naturallyteaching.com/episode37, where I'll have all the links for everything that I mentioned. So thanks again for joining me today. And until next time, keep exploring, keep learning, and keep naturally teaching.

Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the Naturally Teaching Elementary podcast. I hope you found it informative, inspiring, and full of actionable insights to enhance your teaching journey. Connect with me on social media for more updates, science tidbits, and additional resources.

You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at naturally.teaching. Let's continue the conversation and share our passion for teaching elementary age children together. Don't forget to visit my website at naturallyteaching.com for all the show notes from today's episode.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps me improve and reach more educators like you. Thank you again for listening, and until next time, keep exploring, keep learning, and keep naturally teaching.