Here’s a fun activity to do tomorrow in class for Valentine’s Day! Valentine Code gives students practice with vowels while they crack the secret code to solve vocabulary words. (more…)

Will you be doing Valentine’s Day activities with your young learners this week and next? Our Valentine’s Day vocabulary lesson has a variety of fun activities to do in class. Valentine’s Code gives students practice with vowels while they crack the secret code to solve vocabulary words. Valentine’s Day: Find the Objects lets students match vocabulary words to objects in a picture, which they can then color. (more…)

Please see our updated post for Feb 14, 2016: Valentine’s Day Collection.

Love stories are a lot of fun when they involve people you know. This month, ask your students to interview a couple that they know. They should interview one person at a time using the same four questions (provided below). After the interview, they can practice using the simple past tense to retell the love story to their classmates. Which couple had the best love story?

1. Choose a Couple

Tell your students to choose a couple that they know. Here are some ideas: (more…)

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
—Martin Luther King Jr.

Students love learning idioms! With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to teach love idioms to your young learners. Visuals like this poster can really help students remember idioms, which can be difficult because they don’t make literal sense. Last year, our writer Tara Benwell created this fun Love Idioms poster for us. Download the full-size PDF version by clicking on the image or link below.

Download the large-size printable Love Idioms poster PDF
(more…)

See our 2015 post here: http://blog.sproutenglish.com/love-idioms

Are you looking for a fun, yet educational, game to play with your English learners on Valentine’s Day? Here’s a Valentine’s-inspired activity for practicing gerunds!

How to Play “Love, Like, Live Without, Loathe”

1) Review
Review the differences between “love” and “like” and review how to use these before a gerund:

• I like eating chocolate.
• I like eating peanut butter.
• I love mixing chocolate and peanut butter.

2) Introduce Vocabulary
Teach your students two more words and expressions: to be able to “live without” (to not need or to not like a lot), and to “loathe” (to really dislike).

• I can live without vegetables.
• I loathe broccoli. (more…)

Love is in the air! Valentine’s Day will be celebrated in many countries this Friday, February 14. Some schools participate in Valentine’s Day activities such as doing lessons about love/dating/marriage, wearing pink or red, or giving out valentine cards, roses, or chocolate. If you will be discussing Valentine’s Day with your young learners this week, make it educational and teach them the capitalization, punctuation, and spelling rules of this popular holiday!

Capitalization

In English, holidays always use capital letters for the holiday name and the word “Day”.

• I’m looking forward to Valentine’s Day.

When it’s clear we’re referring to the holiday, we can drop the word “Day” if we want.

• I got a ring for Valentine’s Day.
• I got a ring for Valentine’s.

But be careful! We don’t use capital letters when referring to a card, gift, or person.

• He gave me a valentine card yesterday.
• I bought a valentine present for my girlfriend.
• You will always be my valentine. (more…)

Many countries will celebrate Valentine’s Day on February 14. In some schools, it’s common to participate in Valentine’s Day activities like giving out cards and candy in class. Try our Valentine’s Day vocabulary lesson this week for some fun activities to do before or on Valentine’s Day!

(more…)