Do you celebrate the holidays in your classroom? I LOVE EVERY HOLIDAY. It is probably a trait I got from my Mom. She always loved, and still does, decorating and celebrating for each holiday. I try to have that love for the holidays carry over into my classroom, it makes it fun for me and makes my students feel special. At first I thought my high schoolers would dislike celebrating them, but in fact they LOVE THEM.
It doesn’t matter to me what unit I am in the middle of, on a holiday we will do something themed for that holiday.
With Valentine’s Day approaching I have my fun day (really 2 days since we are an A/B day schedule) planned. I used these activities last year and they were so fun! The students talked about it for weeks…and I have had new students this year ask if we are going to do it again.
I teach 90 minute classes so I am able to do pretty much all of this that I am going to link below, but if you teach shorter classes take the things you like and use those. I am also going to list equipment needed and any links that I have.
- Warm Up- This or That activity. The google slides have choices for students to choose which they prefer, all valentines themed of course! The next slide has the exercise they get for the choice they made (complete with gif’s so you don’t have to demonstrate!). There are 5 choice slides, so for me I do each activity for 1 minute so that this is a quick 5 minute warm up and intro to the lesson.
- Link to the This or That Slideshow: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1QYuzc6-H72G1B4VpG8jDczWbrgd62cL51o9EUQDn7Kw/edit?usp=sharing
- Minute to Win it Games! Most of these are more than 1 minute but I liked calling them this and each one is incredibly fun and competitive. The slideshow linked below has 8 different games (slides include directions for how to play, timers, and point values) all have some sort of valentines reference. It may be that I used red cups or red cones, but I tried to make it all connect in some way. Most of the games are active but there is also a name that song game (complete with amazon music playlist) that they loved!!! For these games I split my class in 4-5 teams for all these games, the team with the most points in the end wins!
- https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15H3Xy77Y9POrF_yM5oc5Rf6nACBYRSHbcMiasCU3FIU/edit?usp=sharing
- Equipment needed for the games above:
- Balloons- I used red and pink ones to make it valentines themed 🙂 Even better if you could find heart shaped balloons. I used these from Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088Q7F645/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&psc=1) but of course you can get balloons from anywhere!
- Laundry Baskets or Round Baskets: any kind of basket/box that they can put balloons in or use later to catch a ball. I got mine from my local dollar store and got 5 different colors to help designate teams. I use them for so many different activities!
- Red Solo Cups- again red because valentines day 🙂 You will use these for 2 different activities.
- White boards or just paper for teams to write their answers for the name that song game.
- Small Balls/Stress Balls/Any small object you are ok with them throwing and another student catching in a basket. I used these heart shaped stress balls (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085LBRTZT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1). They made the activity more fun because they bounced out of the baskets easily so students had to work hard to catch them.
- Basketballs and Cones- I used all color cones but made sure I had red ones so those were bonus points during the game. Again because valentines day and red 🙂
- ping pong balls- I used these from amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NA9UMI0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) but of course any would work!
For holidays I also make sure I dress the part! I wear a valentines t shirt, or headband or both. We are lucky as PE teachers we get to be a little eccentric 🙂
I also try to have PE related Valentines and candy for each student. These from a TPT seller are so cute! https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sports-Valentine-Cards-4407623
These activities will give them a memorable day and keep them active and engaged for your entire class period! I promise! I hope you enjoy these freebies, please let me know if you have any questions about how I did this in my classroom! I would love for you to check out my resources on my TPT here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Sellers-Im-Following/Add/Elliotts-Active-Academy
Elliott's Active Academy 