4 Valentine’s Day Activities for Middle School

Looking to bring some fun Valentine’s Day ELA activities into your middle school classroom? Holidays are a great time to review and reteach information you have taught before in a new and interesting way! I have found that holiday based lessons re-engage my students in concepts that we’ve been practicing for a while.

There are four key skills that I think are perfect to review during Valentine’s Day: figurative language, rhetoric, theme, and forming opinions. I want to give you some easy ways to spiral these skills through Valentine’s Day activities!

SKILL 1: FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

Figurative language is such an expansive topic, so continuing to review the skills is important to students’ long term mastery. Luckily, there are some really engaging ways to bring figurative language into the classroom via Valentine’s.

First, review the different types of figurative language with students. Then, have students create an example for each type of figurative language but Valentine’s related! For example, a student might write “she was so beautiful, it took my breath away” for an idiom. Encourage students to get creative.

Next, have students identify figurative language in an excerpt. Personally, I like to pull figurative language from various love songs, but you can also use excerpts from poems or novels. Don’t just stop at identification – have students explain what the figurative language means.

#2: Rhetoric

Rhetorical analysis is a really fun one to review for Valentine’s Day. As always, start by reminding students what rhetorical analysis is, along with the definitions for ethos, pathos, and logos.

Now, here is where the exciting stuff comes in. Find some commercials or advertisements for Valentine’s Day products, and have students identify what rhetorical device is being used. This is a really simple way to flex those rhetorical analysis skills. If you want to challenge students even further, have them locate an advertisement online, identify the rhetorical device, and explain its effectiveness. They can even share the advertisements with the class, so others have a change at analyzing the rhetorical device as well. 

#3: Theme

I don’t know about you, but theme is always a tough skill for my middle schoolers. Any chance I have to review it, I do! For Valentine’s Day ELA activities in particular, I like to use famous love songs to challenge my students’ knowledge of theme.

Pick a few love songs and play them for students in class. Then, have them come up with a theme with a partner or their table group. Push students thinking by asking them what words or lyrics from the song hinted at this theme. If you don’t want to use music, choose a few sappy poems – there are plenty of those!

#4: Forming Opinions + Independent Reading

One lesson that my middle schoolers rave about every year is my “Would You Rather” Valentine’s Day activity. I give my students a short synopsis of two young adult romance novels, and I ask them to select which they would rather read. You can do this with as many books as you’d like, bonus points if they are available in your or the school’s library.

This activity is great for a few reasons. First, it introduces students to new books and gets them interested in reading. Independent reading just for the fun of it is really important, so I like to hook my students into new reads. Second, I don’t just ask students to select which one they would like to read, I also make them explain why. This forces them to provide evidence to prove their opinion.

Want to review all of these skills, but don’t have the time to find the materials? I have a middle school Valentine’s Day activity unit that is ready to go! No prep involved, simply print the needed materials and use the provided links for all songs and commercials. Easy-peasy.

This Valentine’s Day activity includes a word search, figurative language with sentences, TV commercial rhetoric, love song theme analysis, and a love story would you rather! Seriously, it’s fun and your students will be engaged in various reading skills.