Getting to the Heart of Valentine's Day With Art Lessons
Valentine's day inspires not just love, but art too! Teachers can find ideas for Valentine's Day activities for all grade levels.
By Amy Medico
Valentine’s Day can be a great source of inspiration for art project ideas. Not only can teachers make connections between art, history and math, but also lessons are available for students at all grade levels. The Valentine’s Day theme will engage students’ creativity, while allowing teachers to introduce interdisciplinary themes.
There are many stories about the origins of Valentine’s Day. While no one can be certain of how the holiday originated, it has now become largely associated with the exchange of love notes called “valentines.”
Students can easily be engaged in Valentine's Day activities that involve creating valentines. Schools often allow students to exchange valentines in class, and students will enjoy the opportunity to create their own. Creating Valentines can be a perfect way to introduce students to the history and traditions of Valentine’s Day. Even older students can be engaged in Valentine's Day by making thorough examinations of commercial valentines and the application of graphic design to valentines.
One of the most common symbols used on valentines is the heart shape. This symbol originates from the ancient belief that the heart was the emotional and spiritual center of the body. Today the heart symbol is most often used to represent love.
In addition to its connections with Valentine’s Day, the heart shape provides great connections to math at all grade levels. For younger grades, hearts can be used to illustrate symmetry. Symmetry is, of course, the exact reflection of forms on opposite sides of a dividing line. For older grades, students can look at the heart shape’s connections to geometry. The heart shape we know is reflected in geometry’s cardioid curve.
Valentine’s Day can generate great lessons that not only allow students to be creative, but also teach other concepts as well. Students will enjoy the Valentine activities and these projects will brighten any classroom or bulletin board!
Valentine's Activities:
Who will BEE my secret Valentine?
This is a lesson for younger grades that can be used to teach symmetry. In this simple lesson students learn about Valentine’s Day, and use symmetry to decorate a Valentine's Day mailbox. I think this provides a great introduction to symmetry, while providing younger students an activity they will enjoy.
This is another lesson that can be used to teach about symmetry through the heart shape. This lesson is appropriate for students in elementary and middle school, and allows them to create a 3D bird using heart shapes. For older students, this lesson could be adapted to have them create an animal of their own design.
Victorian Valentines Lesson Plan
In this lesson for middle school and high school students, the origins of Valentine’s Day and valentine cards are examined. Students learn about the Victorian Valentines and examine the design of those cards. Students create their own designs for Victorian Valentine’s using watercolor, markers, and collage elements. This lesson could be a great way to introduce students to commercial art and graphic design.
This lesson for high school students really explores the geometry of the heart shape. Students use geometry-based instructions to create a heart shape, which they may then decorate. Be advised that this lesson is only appropriate for students who have some familiarity with geometry. It could benefit from collaboration with a math teacher.
Discussion Question:
How do you celebrate Valentine's Day in your classroom?