Byrdseed

An Academic Twist on Valentines

An academic twist on Valentines

Image from Joyce Wan

Joyce Wan’s We Belong Together is a wonderful book highlighting items that “belong together” like milk and cookies, peanut butter and jelly, and eggs and bacon.

I also spotted this engagement photo shoot based on the phrase “You are the peanut butter to my jelly.”

Let’s merge this theme with curriculum to create Academic Valentines!

Examples

We’ll ask students to look at an academic topic, searching for ideas that go together “like peanut butter and jelly.” Here are some examples:

Social Studies

  • You’re the Zeus to my Hera
  • You’re the democracy to my Athens
  • You’re the Sphinx to my Giza
  • You’re the Lewis to my Clark
  • You’re the Caesar Augustus to my Pax Romana

Science

Math

  • You’re the c2 to my a2 + b2
  • You’re the divisor to my quotient.
  • You’re the origin to my coordinate plane.
  • You’re the vertex to my adjacent angles.
  • You’re the rise to my run.

Get articles like this in your inbox.

I'll send you one or two emails a month with links to new articles, greatest hits, and information about what I'm up to! Join the mailing list!

Adding On

These sentences go on the front of the card with an illustration. Here’s the cover for my Phobos and Deimos card:

Phobos

On the inside, students write an explanation of the relationship between the two items. Here is where you can set high academic expectations for your fun Valentine activity.

Phobos and Deimos go together because they are Mars’ only moons. Plus, they were discovered within a week of each other in August of 1877. Phobos and Deimos are Fear and Terror from Greek mythology. Finally, both moons are tidally locked, meaning that they always point the same face to Mars, much like Earth’s moon.

Integrate this with any art techniques you use, or let your students use software to create professional-looking cards. Post them or let kids send them to another teacher at school for fun surprises.

If you try this with your class, let me know what they come up with: ian@byrdseed.com! I’m sure they’ll take it in some awesome and unexpected directions.