Celebrating Valentine’s Day with Your Students
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with Acts of Kindness and Connection
Valentine’s Day is more than just cards and candy—it’s a perfect opportunity to reflect Christ’s love by teaching students the power of kindness, connection, and communication.
Download our free, ready-to-use Valentine’s Day resources and help your students celebrate with activities that foster inclusion, appreciation, and whole-child learning.
RESOURCES
Recipe for Kindness
This activity gives students the chance to see kindness as something they can build, mix, and shape with care. Whether they’re filling a pot with ingredients for friendship, or mixing up a recipe for patience, they’re learning that the best connections, come from the right balance of trust, respect, and heart. Now, let’s get cooking!
Early Ed
Students will identify the “ingredients” for their recipe for kindness.
Supplies: Chart paper, markers, ingredient cards, bowl
Setup: Draw a large bowl or pot on chart paper. Download and cut out the ingredient cards.
Steps:
Activate schema by discussing what students know about recipes and ingredients.
Introduce activity: “Today we will make a special recipe for the way we treat our friends, a recipe for kindness!”
Choose two recipe cards and explain why they are needed to show kindness.
Ask: “How else can we be kind to others?”
Pass the bowl with recipe cards around the circle, stopping intermittently for students to choose a card and discuss its importance.
Students will bring the cards to the chart paper to add to the bowl.
Ask students how they will show kindness today.
Variation: Want to incorporate movement? Tape an extra set of cards around the room for students to find.
K-5
Students will write a recipe for kindness, including “ingredients” and steps to be a good friend.
Supplies: Recipe template
Setup: Print a recipe template for each student.
Steps:
Introduce activity: “Today we’re going to pretend we are chefs in the kitchen! Chefs use recipes to make yummy foods, and recipes need special amounts of each ingredient. These amounts are called measurements and they help us know how much of something we need.”
Ask about or explain key terms of measurements like a cup, tablespoon, pinch, etc.
Depending on students’ ages, model a class recipe with ideas about what makes a good friend
Students write their recipe for love and kindness using descriptive words and actions (e.g., “1 cup of helping others, 2 tablespoons of saying thank you, and a pinch of laughter”).
They can decorate their recipe cards with drawings on the back.
Extension: Compile the recipes into a classroom "Cookbook of Love and Kindness" to display or send home.
Middle School
Working in teams, students will write a recipe for kindness and perform a skit teaching others how to “make” the recipe.
Supplies: Recipe template
Setup: Assign recipe teams and distribute recipe templates.
Steps:
Start with the questions:
“What are the main ingredients for a strong friendship or relationship?”
“What steps do you take to show love or kindness?”
In small groups, students write recipes that include both physical actions (e.g., “1 heaping cup of listening”) and emotional qualities (e.g., “2 tablespoons of patience”)
Encourage students to identify roles within their group: recipe writer, recipe artist, and skit director
Instruct each group to describe how to “mix”, prepare”, or “serve” their recipe, such as:
“Combine trust and honesty in a big bowl. Stir in 2 cups of laughter. Let kindness bake for 10 minutes.”
Get creative! Encourage students to add a “secret ingredient” to make their recipe unique. They can even use real or imaginative measurements (e.g., “a sprinkle of patience,” “a bucket of teamwork”)
Prepare a skit to teach others how to make this recipe
Wrap-Up: “Great work today, chefs! Remember, relationships are like recipes - they take effort, the right mix of ingredients, and care to turn out just right. What will you try to 'add' to your friendships this week?"
Optional Discussion: Present skits to the class.
High School
Working in small groups, students will write a recipe for a topic like trust, friendship, stress management, or conflict resolution, including “ingredients” and steps to be successful.
Supplies: Recipe template, list of topics
Setup: Divide students into small groups and assign each a recipe topic.
Steps:
Students work together to write detailed recipes for their assigned topic, with explanations for each ingredient (e.g., “1 cup of trust, because without it, the whole recipe falls apart”).
Assign each group a recipe:
Conflict Resolution
Community Building
Friendship
Healthy Communication
Trust
Goal Setting
Teamwork
Time management
Stress management
Resilience
Encourage students to think critically and apply the concept to real-life scenarios.
Ask them to include a section for “adjustments,” such as:
“If someone feels left out, add more inclusion and stir gently.”
Get creative! Encourage students to add a “secret ingredient” to make their recipe unique. They can even use real or imaginative measurements (e.g., “a sprinkle of patience,” “a bucket of teamwork”)
Reflection Extension: Have students write a short paragraph explaining why they chose certain ingredients or how their recipe applies to their lives.
Love Jar
This is a classroom activity to help love continue to fill the air all year long.
What is a love jar? A love jar can be used as a positive tool to help remind your students of things that they love about one another, things they love about school, and even things they love about themselves.
Here’s how it works:
Have students write down what they love about themselves, their classmates, and school.
Use color coded paper to differentiate between the three. Let pink represent self, purple represent classmates, and red represent school.
Fill a jar with all of these wonderful little love notes and whenever your students need a gentle reminder of the things they love, pull a note (or a few) from the jar and read it aloud to the class.
And just like that, we can continue the love.
Links of Love Activity
This fun and engaging Valentine’s Day activity will help your students think about the people they love and the unique ways to show it!
Materials:
(2) 2 inch wide x 8 inch long strips of paper
Pen, pencil, or marker
Tape or stapler
Activity Instructions:
Think about a person you love and write their name down on a strip of paper (i.e., Mom or your best friend).
On another strip of paper, write down ways you can show love to this person.
Once the activity is completed, create space for students to share their work as you connect the links to form a chain.
Use tape or a stapler to close one strip of paper together, forming a circle. Loop each subsequent, completed paper strip inside the last completed loop, forming the Links of Love.
You can display your class' Links of Love in your classroom or school hallway. Consider linking with other classes in your school to show and spread the love!
Here are some questions to help your students brainstorm:
Why do you love this person?
What do they do to show you that they love you?
How does this person make you feel?
How can you show your outward love to this person?
Let’s celebrate Valentine’s Day with activities that strengthen classroom connections, making every student feel valued and engaged—all while having fun.
Download your free Valentine’s Day resources today!
