Valentine’s Day Lesson Plan: Culture
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This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Valentine’s Day, and supports the standard of analyzing the background of holidays and their impact on culture. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.
Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
Ask students:
- Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day? If so, what traditions do you have for this day?
- What kinds of Valentine’s day traditions do you know of?
- How do you think Valentine’s Day might have started?
Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE
- Read the description on the Valentine’s day topic page.
- Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding.
Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS
Assign the Valentine’s Day Challenge and Quiz, applying essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.
Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND
Students express what they learned about Valentine’s Day while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.
- Make-a-Movie: Produce a news report interviewing a figure who influenced the evolution of Valentine’s Day, like the Pope, Geoffrey Chaucer, or Esther Howland.
- Make-a-Map: Make a concept map identifying how key events influenced the evolution of Valentine’s Day traditions from Roman times to the present day.
- Creative Coding: Code a Valentine’s Day museum exhibit with artifacts representing traditions from around the world.
Teacher Support Resources:
- Pause Point Overview: Video tutorial showing how Pause Points actively engage students to stop, think, and express ideas.
- Learning Activities Modifications: Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
- Learning Activities Support: Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.
