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We all need more Valentine’s Day speech therapy activities to help us plan engaging sessions in February. Valentine’s Day is a fun, easy theme you can use with preschool and elementary students, especially when planning starts to feel a little lackluster this time of year.
If you’re in a creative funk, you’re not alone. That’s why I put together this ultimate list of Valentine’s Day speech therapy activities to support articulation, language, and mixed groups, so you can plan effective, engaging sessions without starting from scratch.
These Valentine’s Day speech therapy ideas are designed for SLPs working with preschool through elementary students in both pull-out and push-in settings.
Amazon affiliate links are provided throughout this blog post to help you find the materials you need! I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.
One question I get a lot is how long to spend on a Valentine’s Day theme in speech therapy. This is where theme smashing comes in. Theme smashing is when you intentionally choose themes that overlap concepts as you transition into a new unit.
For example, if you start February with a Valentine’s Day theme focused on celebrating, giving, and showing appreciation, you might spend the first two weeks leaning into the holiday aspects. Then, during the last two weeks of February, you can naturally transition into friendship and kindness. Many of those concepts already show up during Valentine’s Day, which makes the shift feel seamless for students.
Using a themed unit for 2–4 weeks can save a lot of planning time. You’re reusing materials you already have, pulling out themed resources only once or twice a month, and giving students more meaningful exposure to the same concepts. With the right materials, you don’t need to constantly search for new activities. Often, a book, video, or short reading passage can serve as your anchor activity, with extension activities that can be reused across multiple sessions.
If you want a bigger picture, look at how themes can work across the school year, you can check out my speech therapy themes by month guide here. I also dive deeper into why I use themes longer than a week on episode 45 of the Real Talk SLP podcast.
In February, I often rotate between themes like friendship and kindness, baking, and community helpers, with mini-themes such as Valentine’s Day and Groundhog Day layered in.
If you’re planning literacy-based Valentine’s Day speech therapy sessions, books are an easy way to target multiple goals while keeping planning simple. These Valentine’s Day books work well for articulation, language, and discussion across preschool through upper elementary.
Love Monster by Rachel Bright
Day it Rained Hearts: A Valentine’s Day Book For Kids by Felicia Bond
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose by Lucille Colandro
Hedgehugs by Steve Wilson
The Night Before Valentine’s Day by Natasha Wing
A Crankenstein Valentine by Samantha Berger
The Biggest Valentine Ever by Steven Kroll
Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli
Valentine’s Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg
If you’re looking for even more Valentine’s Day book ideas to rotate through your caseload, Sweet Southern Speech also shares a helpful list of Valentine’s Day book recommendations.
You and find book cheat sheets, companion activities, and story maps for Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch, Love Monster, and Day it Rained Hearts in the Themed Therapy SLP membership.
If you want ready-to-use materials to pair with the Valentine’s Day books listed above, you can find book cheat sheets, story maps, and companion activities inside the Themed Therapy SLP Membership.
The membership includes book companions for Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch, Love Monster, and The Day It Rained Hearts, along with a Valentine’s Day mini unit featuring book cheat sheets and companion activities for There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose and The Biggest Valentine Ever.
You’ll also find sequencing visuals to use with There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose, making it easier to target story elements, retells, and sequencing goals without extra prep.
Using easy-to-prep Valentine’s Day crafts in speech therapy makes planning simpler when you’re working with mixed groups. Crafts are also easy to adapt, which means you can target articulation, language, and social goals without needing separate activities.
One of my FAVE crafts to do for Valentine’s Day is the free Love You to Pieces craft. It’s so easy to adapt to speech and language goals. It’s simple to prep and easy to adapt across goals. You can read more about how to use this craft to support a variety of speech and language needs. I also share how to pair the book Love Monsterby Rachel Bright with an easy paper plate Love Monster craft, and how to create a heart wreath that pairs well with the book The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond in this blog post.
Another flexible option is the free love bug craft, which works well with dot markers, mini erasers, magnetic chips, or markers. This craft pairs easily with any goal and gives students a clear way to earn practice opportunities. I use my articulation flipbooks or flashcards with these crafts to support my speech sound goals.
If you’re using Valentine’s Day as a bridge into friendship and kindness, you can also make acts of kindness craft wallets during sessions or co-teaching lessons. The templates for these crafts are included in the friendship-themed unit inside the Themed Therapy SLP Membership.
For an easy mixed group articulation and language craft that you can send home for additional practice use the 3D Valentine’s Day craft.
Sensory bins are one of my favorite ways to plan Valentine’s Day speech therapy activities for younger students because they’re easy to adapt for a wide range of goals. You can use the same bin to target vocabulary, following directions, describing, or early grammar while keeping students engaged.
If you’re looking for Valentine’s Day–themed sensory bin ideas, you can check out this blog post with examples you can recreate for your sessions. I also sharesensory bin ideas on Instagram if you want to see how I set them up in real therapy sessions.
When planning for a PreK–2nd grade caseload, it helps to have simple, visual supports you can reuse across groups. To teach Valentine’s Day vocabulary, you can use the free describing posters and visual supports to help students label, describe, and talk about holiday-themed items. You can also target early grammar using the flashcards and mats with this free Valentine’s Day speech therapy unit.
If you’re planning push-in lessons for younger students, having everything organized ahead of time makes a big difference. Using station-based Valentine’s Day activities, parent newsletters, Google Slides, lesson plan cheat sheets, and book recommendations can help you plan efficiently while supporting multiple goals in the classroom. You can check out that resource here.
For more digital activities you can use in teletherapy, Speech Sprouts has a lot of ideas for a Valentine’s Day theme.
Finding engaging Valentine’s Day speech therapy activities for upper elementary and middle school students can be tricky. This age group can be hard to please, but once you find an activity they approve of, engagement usually follows.
One activity I use is a free Valentine’s Day challenge, which has a game-like format that naturally sneaks in practice with vocabulary and complex sentence structures. Because it doesn’t feel like traditional work, students tend to buy in quickly. You can download both the printable and Google Slides versions using the pink button below.
For figurative language goals, Valentine’s Day is a great time to work on love- and friendship-themed idioms. Inside the friendship-themed unit in the Themed Therapy SLP Membership, you’ll find an extensive idiom list along with heart-themed matching activities to support comprehension and use.
Another great option for older students is a Valentine’s Day cookie decorating lesson, which works well for targeting perspective taking, problem solving, and sequencing. You can check out the full lesson idea in this blog post. If you’re looking for even more Valentine’s Day ideas for upper elementary and middle school students, Pedi Speechie shares a helpful post with lots of visual examples.
When using a theme-based approach, it’s important to choose materials that repeatedly expose students to the same vocabulary and concepts. Nonfiction reading passages are a great way to build background knowledge while targeting comprehension, vocabulary, and discussion skills.
Inside the Themed Therapy SLP Membership, you’ll find nonfiction reading passages that pair well with a friendship and kindness theme. You can also find high-quality passages on sites like NewsELA and ReadWorks.
Some Valentine’s Day–themed passages that work well in therapy include:
NewsELA has a complete list of Valentine’s Day themed passages that could work well for your caseload. These passages are easy to reuse across sessions while targeting multiple language goals.
On days when prep time is limited, short videos can be a lifesaver. Valentine’s Day–themed science and discussion videos are especially helpful for mixed groups because they naturally support vocabulary, comprehension, and expressive language.
I often use videos from Mystery Doug, which include short explanations and visuals that work well for small groups or co-teaching lessons.
Some Valentine’s Day–friendly videos to try include:
Here is a list of some great videos:
How Does Your Heart Pump Blood?
Where Does Chocolate Come From?
You can also use Simon’s Cat Valentine’s Day videos to target perspective taking, story retelling, summarizing, and inferencing. Wordless or nearly wordless shorts work especially well for these goals. For quick lesson planning, use my Valentine’s Day speech therapy cheat sheets for the Simon’s Cat videos.
Inside the Themed Therapy SLP Membership, you’ll also find a Google Slides resource with curated links to songs, books, and videos for your PreK–5th grade caseload.
Incorporating cooking or snack-prep activities can significantly boost engagement, especially during push-in therapy or self-contained classroom lessons. Cooking activities naturally support sequencing, following directions, and descriptive language.
Visual recipes from Live Love Speech are a great option. Their free Valentine’s Day s’mores recipe includes step-by-step visuals that make it easy to support speech and language goals while keeping students motivated.
For older students, you can also use short science-based cooking videos to explain how Valentine’s Day treats are made. Some themed video ideas include:
These pair well with discussion, comprehension, complex sentences, summarizing, and cause-and-effect goals.
If you’re working on articulation goals during Valentine’s Day, you don’t need a completely separate activity just for speech sounds. Many open-ended Valentine’s Day activities can be easily adapted for articulation practice by swapping in target words, sound-loaded pictures, or drill cards.
For example, crafts like the Love You to Pieces craft or the love bug craft work well for articulation when students practice their target sound before earning each piece or decoration. These open-ended crafts make it easy to get high repetitions while keeping sessions engaging. Grab those templates in the craft section above.
This easy fine motor heart activity would pair well with any articulation or phonology goal you are working on with students from A Play Filled Life.
If you’re looking for print-and-go articulation activities, the Sweetheart Dab-A-Sound FREEBIE from Panda Speech is a great option for targeting common phonemes. You can also use my Valentine’s Day articulation worksheets that pair with The Day It Rained Hearts to target speech sounds while reinforcing Valentine’s Day vocabulary.
If you want even more Valentine’s Day articulation ideas, including drill-based activities, games, and worksheets, I’ll be sharing a full breakdown in a separate Valentine’s Day articulation post.
What Valentine’s Day activities do you use with your speech therapy caseload? Share your favorites in the comments or tag me on social media @thedabblingspeechie — I’d love to see what’s working in your sessions.
