Valentine's Day Activities for Speech Therapy
- Stacy Crouse
- Jan 28
- 6 min read
If you're anything like me, you might feel like Valentine's Day is synonymous with... preparation. As much as I love helping my own kids create 20+ valentines to give to classmates (and watching them unload the ones they bring home), the whole process leaves me little to no motivation to also prep Valentine's Day activities for speech therapy.
But that is A-okay because there are loads of no-prep Valentine's Day resources a click or two away! These low-prep activities can target speech, language, and social skills with students of all ages this February. If digital and other no-prep materials like Boom Cards, interactive PDFs, and Google Slides have your heart, these activities will surely sweeten your Valentine's Day!
Valentine's Day Speech Therapy Activities
Whether you're planning ahead or scrambling between sessions, these Valentine's Day speech therapy activities are designed to be easy to implement and flexible enough to meet a wide range of goals. From language and articulation to social skills, there’s something here for every student on your caseload.
LANGUAGE SKILLS
If you're targeting expressive or receptive language, check out these low-prep digital and quick-print activities for your speech therapy sessions.
This Boom Card memory game (get it here on Boom) is a great way to introduce or review Valentine's Day vocabulary words. There are 9 different levels, so you can use the deck with students of many ages and levels.
This Boom Cards deck (get it here on Boom) focuses on the steps and sequence of creating valentines. Your elementary caseload can work on the language for this specific task and on following directions to create digital valentines! The directions contain embedded concepts and get progressively more complex, so you can use this deck for a range of ages and levels.
These busy Valentine's Day picture scenes include six sets of directions to practice receptive language skills and understand basic concepts. An open-ended scene is also included so you can create your own directions tailored to what your student needs. These picture scenes are also great for working on answering wh- questions and other expressive language targets.
This digital PDF is another way to achieve multiple goals with a single resource. It includes activities for multiple language goals (and even an articulation portion, too). The PDF can be opened on your computer or tablet and has fillable text boxes, clickable buttons, and checkboxes right there on the pages. The ultimate resource for a range of goals with an elementary caseload!
ARTICULATION SKILLS
Want to squeeze in some speech practice amongst all the vocabulary and concepts being talked about? Here are a couple of motivating articulation activities to keep on hand around Valentine's Day!
If you want to really awe your preschool or elementary speech therapy caseload, this flashlight search Boom Card deck (get it here on Boom) never disappoints.
Students move the flashlight around the Valentine's Day scene to find words containing specific speech sounds. Then get extra practice with a "lights on" version of the scene that has movable checkmarks to find (and practice) each of the target words again.
The dot-to-dot pages are a simple way to get in lots of articulation trials while staying on the Valentine's Day theme. With separate pages for each sound and word position, they also make great individualized homework assignments.
This "Speech Lib" is a hilariously engaging way to celebrate Valentine's Day with your older articulation students. Use it with word lists to target specific articulation sounds for a quick, easy activity.
SOCIAL SKILLS
Valentine’s Day provides a natural opportunity to work on pragmatic language, perspective-taking, and conversational skills. This activity gives students structured practice in a fun, low-pressure way.
These Boom Cards (get them here on Boom) hit those sometimes-hard-to-target social goals! Students identify an appropriate short response (from choices on candy hearts) to what someone says in a social interaction. Then, students can formulate a longer comment or question that would be appropriate. With two levels, you can extend the activity to meet more advanced goals as needed!
OPEN-ENDED VALENTINE'S DAY ACTIVITIES
Any of these activities would be the perfect addition to your Valentine's Day lesson plans. They can be used with mixed groups, across multiple sessions in a day, as a warm-up or time-filler, or to target just about anything you need!
Another game that gives you the flexibility to target many speech therapy goals is this Valentine's Day gift-guessing game. Each student picks an item before asking questions to determine which gift the other player chose. Oh, and it comes with a digital version in Google Slides that works beautifully for teletherapy... or days you don't have time to fiddle with the printer!
Versatility is the name of this Valentine's Day game! In this Boom Cards deck (get it here on Boom), students are presented with 2 boxes on each card and try to be the first to determine which Valentine's Day-themed object is shown in both boxes. Plus, you can use the included "speech practice" card for articulation students to identify and practice words with their target sounds.
This activity (get it here on Boom) elicits a lot of speech and language as students search for the 5 differences in each picture. As you discuss them, you'll be able to work on vocabulary, prepositions, pronouns, verbs, plurals, and articulation carryover.
Digital stickers are a fun way to end a Valentine's Day-themed session, or use them throughout! Digital stickers are so flexible for whatever you need them for, whether it's reinforcement or a standalone activity. Digital stickers are a staple for younger children in teletherapy!
ACTIVITIES FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Finding age-appropriate Valentine’s Day activities for older students can be tricky, but it is possible to keep the theme without it feeling too juvenile. These resources focus on language, syntax, and conversation skills while keeping students engaged.
As mentioned, but worth repeating, this "Speech Lib" will be a favorite among your older students. And sorry in advance for their request to do it again in the next session. 😉
Another way to bring the Valentine's Day spirit into sessions with older students is to use this passage about candy hearts. It includes a variety of language activities that go with the passage, and puts a fun spin on the holiday theme. Plus, you can choose which version to use with each student– Boom Cards, Google Slides, or the printable pages!
If you have students working on syntactic language development, this Valentine's Day-themed unit is a great option. Students create compound sentences using coordinating conjunctions by first building sentences and then combining them.
VALENTINE'S DAY VIDEOS
Here are a few videos that would be great additions to your Valentine's Day lesson plans.
This YouTube video from Homeschool Pop shares some interesting facts about Valentine's Day. Perfect for elementary students!
For your older students, you can use any of the Simon's Cat videos on this playlist.
This YouTube video teaches about where the iconic Valentine's Day candy (conversation hearts) came from.
VALENTINE'S DAY WEBSITES
And last but not least, check out these links to websites with Valentine's Day activities you can use to target a variety of goals with a range of ages in speech therapy!
The PBS Kids website offers several Valentine's Day games.
If you subscribe to ABCYa, check out this Valentine's Day puzzle or this Valentine Hunt game.
These digital coloring pages on thecolor.com are another easy activity.
This hilarious article from newsela.com talks about some very nontraditional Valentine's Day bouquets.
Find Valentine's Day jokes (for kids) from Reader's Digest.
This Baamboozle Valentine's Day quiz would be fun for a group.
As an SLP, all you need is love, and let's be honest– a week of no prepping this time of year. So treat yourself this Valentine's Day with a set of speech therapy activities that you print or download and go. Sheesh, there's enough there to fill the entire month of February, if you wanted to.
💌 Looking for cute and cost-effective valentines to give your students? Check out these speech-therapy themed gift tags!
📌 Got a speech therapy board on Pinterest? SAVE the love ❤️