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This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
Valentine’s Day is a special time in the kindergarten classroom. Your whole room gets filled with hearts, sweet treats and terrible puns on friendship and romance. The young students focus on the friendship aspect so you don’t have to worry about things getting out of hand, and you can tap into the spirit of the holiday with this Valentines Alphabet Match center. It doesn’t matter to your student what skill you choose to practice as long as there’s love hearts and Cupid arrows all around them.
Matching Lowercase And Capital Letters
Letter recognition is a key skill to master in kindergarten. The early part of the year is spent going systematically through each and every letter, so a Valentine’s alphabet match game comes along at the right time for review. Students need to know that each of the 26 letters in the English alphabet has an uppercase and lowercase forms, and some of these forms change depending on which font is being used (consider the different shapes of the letter ‘a’, or how some letters appear in cursive). This cute Valentine’s alphabet puzzle will have your students matching lowercase and capital letters surrounded by hearts and friends.
Preparing Your Alphabet Heart Puzzles
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Extension Activities For Valentine’s Alphabet Match
The best thing about this Valentine’s Day center is that it’s so simple to use. You simply cut up the heart letters that you want your students to practice that day, and they have to match the uppercase and lowercase version of each letter. The fact that they form a jigsaw makes this a self-checking activity (though you can scaffold this by adding additional small cuts so each piece will only match with the correct other half. To get even more out of this Valentine’s alphabet puzzle, try some of these tasks:
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Scavenger hunt – any time you can bring movement to a learning center, you’ll always see the engagement rise dramatically. Turn this matching lowercase and capital letters into a classwide scavenger hunt by hiding all the pieces around the room for your students to track down. Once they’ve found all the pieces, they can then create the jigsaw puzzle. This also acts as a good logic puzzle as they will need to work out which letters (and which case of those letters) they’re still missing.
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Find a partner – you can also turn this Valentine’s alphabet match game into a social activity. Start by handing out heart halves to your students and challenge them to find their partner as quickly as possible. You can then up the challenge by doing the same task, but not allowing them to talk, or show their card. You’ll be amazed at how inventive they are about sharing their letter.
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Fix the mistakes – finally, error analysis is a great tool for assessment as it truly shows which students have mastered the skill of matching lowercase and capital letters. Give them a complete set of alphabet love heart cookies, but “accidentally” mix a few of the answers up. Then challenge your students to find and fix all the mistakes, either by themselves or working collaboratively with a partner.
Like this? Then you’ll love my 10 Valentines Themed Literacy and Math Centers. These easy-prep games will get your students working on letters, phonics, numbers and more!
Games included:
1) Alphabet Clip Strips – identify lower and uppercase of the letter shown, work fine motor and literacy at the same time!
2) Letter Case Matching Hearts – 2 piece puzzles for A-Z
3) Spin and Cover Letters – 5 Letter identification mats for A-Z for use with plastic spinner or a simple paperclip and pencil
4) Valentines Vowels – fill in the missing vowels of common CVC words, 40 cards included (8 each for A,E,I,O,U)
5) Valentines Cards Syllable Sort – sort out the picture cards into the mailbox showing the correct number of syllables
6) 1-10 Memory Game – tally and number versions included
7) Roll to 100 – special printable hearts design dice
8) 1-10 Lego Mats – practice writing out the number and forming the number with blocks
9) 1-10 Number Tracing Strips – perfect for dry erase writing practice
10) Which Has More Clip Cards – identify which group of chocolates is bigger
Check it out for more ready-to-go fun!
Fun Books About Kindness and Love:
Other Valentines Printables You’ll Love:
1) Valentines Alphabet Clip Strips – Kids will choose among 5 different letters on the strip to identify the matching ones.
2) Valentines Tally Mark Cards – Learn how to count tally marks up to 20.
3) Valentines Worksheet Pack – 50 pages of mixed printables for literacy and math.
4) Kindness Number Puzzle Strips – Counting and number sequencing from 1 to 10.
5) Roll and Cover Number Hearts – Practice number recognition up to 6 with the special printable dice.
6) Valentines Alphabet Match – Students will put together uppercase and lowercase letters.
Grab These Tools For Your Classroom:
Browse My Most Popular Literacy Activites:
1) Valentines Alphabet Clip Strips – Kids will choose among 5 different letters on the strip to identify the matching ones.
2) Alphabet Beginning Sound Coloring Pages – Watch your child become more familiar with each letter of the alphabet as they practice coloring in the objects with that beginning sound.
3) Tommy Turkey’s Alphabet Pie – This turkey-themed letter recognition activity is so simple to prep and makes a great file folder game!
4) Pirate Alphabet Playdough Mats – Just print out the playing mats and ask your child to form the letters out using the playdough provided.
5) Farm Alphabet Find and Cover Letters – Work on letter recognition any time of the year!
6) Werewolf Spin and Cover – Kids will race to find all the letters on their mat this Halloween.
7) Bunny Burrows Game – Fun game for small groups or circle time where students will catch a bunny and say out the sound.
8) Letter-saurus Fossil Digging – Dinosaur lovers will enjoy being a pretend paleontologist and finding all the letters.
9) Alphabet Handwriting Worksheets – Practice lowercase and capital letters with these print-and-go pages.
10) Rainy Day Alphabet – 1 printable, many ways to use.
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