This lesson is both a cultural holiday lesson and one that gives students a chance to use positive adjectives related to personality (which is covered in Here We Go! 5 in Unit 9). If your curriculum allows you to line up teaching Unit 9 near Valentine's Day, then this lesson might be perfect for you!!!
I found it most natural to start off with the Valentine's Day PPT which takes about 7-10 minutes (but this part can be removed altogether!) The Valentine's Day PPT walks students through some elementary school Valentine's Day celebration traditions in the US through photos, including: Valentine's Day classroom parties, character-based cards for the entire class, DIY mailboxes for collecting cards, and party snacks. Kids are super surprised when they see the photos. This presentation allows you to segue easily into the activity, which is:
Making Valentine's Day Cards for classmates!
Step 0: Review the vocabulary words from the lesson (strong, friendly, cool, kind, smart, brave) and also the two bonus words I've included (funny, amazing at ~)
Step 1: You'll want to pass out the cards, then explain the instructions after. (I have a PDF print out with 6 cards to a page - ideal to print in size B4 or larger and then cut)
Step 2: Students write their name and class number. PLEASE WALK AROUND AND CHECK ALL STUDENTS DO THIS CORRECTLY (I have a slide that shows the students that they need to write their name and class number on the right side of the card.)
Step 3: Explain to students that they DO NOT write anything on the left side. The left side is for their classmates to fill out.
Step 4: There are many ways to do this next part, but you'll want to find a way for students to give their card to someone else. I usually let the JTE decide how to do this because they know their class personality so well. Some ideas:
- let students work in pairs and just trade their card and write as many adjectives as they'd like (great if you're short on time)
- let students get into groups of 4 and pass the cards in a circle
- pass the cards in a snake pattern and let each student write one word at a time
- the most complicated and CUTEST method I witnessed by one teacher was he had the 6 groups, 3 were boys and the other 3 were girls. The boy and girl groups drew straws to get paired up and traded cards. Writing for the other gender was chaotic but also hilarious to see some students get embarassed or fight over cards.
Step 5: Collect all of the cards at the end. I like to check all of the cards and add adjectives to the ones that don't have a lot on them. Also, it's important to make sure that no students wrote any inappropriate or mean things. I added a sticker to the stamp corner to make it more fun!
Step 6: Give the cards back to students on Valentine's Day. In my case, I didn't go to this school on the actual holiday as it wasn't my visit day, but I asked the teachers to do it for me after giving them the cards the school day before!
This lesson was a great way to get students to care about the meanings of the different adjectives, because they were using them to describe their friends as well as reading the cards they received. I hope your students enjoy this too!