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Have a heart!
Celebrate Valentine's Day
across the curriculum

 

On Valentine's Day, as on most other in-school holidays, excited students can create a classroom atmosphere that wreaks havoc with the learning process. Don't fight it! Join in the spirit -- with activities that celebrate the day without sacrificing instruction.

It's Valentine's Day, and your high-spirited students are more concerned with how many cards they've received -- and from whom -- than with the number of elements in the periodic table or with memorizing multiplication tables. Have a heart! Help them celebrate the day with these "heart-y" activities.

More from Education World!

* Straight from the Heart!

* More Valentine's Day Lessons
 

Need a "quick-tivity?" Ask your students to think of as many compound words containing the word heart that they can.

A brief description of each activity appears below. Click any headline for a complete teaching resource!

Circulatory system travel brochures
Students create brochures describing a trip through the human circulatory system. (Grades 6-12)

Build an oxygen plant
Students create models of an oxygen-delivery system and relate it to the function of the human circulatory system. (Grades 6-12)

A knife to the heart
Students investigate the history of heart surgery and create a time line showing the most important breakthroughs in cardiac medicine. (Grades 6-12)

Run the circulatory system relay
Students participate in a relay race through the circulatory system. (Grades 6-12)

 

Additional resources

The heart: An online exploration
The Franklin Museum Online provides this tour of the human heart.

Collection of murmurs, defects and others
Sounds of healthy and abnormal heartbeats. [archived copy]

 

Updated 1/31/2016