It’s Valentine’s Day season, and I am always trying to incorporate holidays and celebrations into our Library Media and Technology Class! This year, I decided to have students create digital, printable Valentine’s Day cards for someone in their family.
Knowing that my students use Google Slides and Google Docs all the time, I wondered what could I teach them that would actually be NEW for them. To me, NEW means engagement and excitement from the students. I also like to teach them skills they can use for projects OTHER than academic and school work.
As I was searching for my own printable Valentine’s Day cards for my son’s preschool class, I thought wouldn’t it be great if I could teach students how to make their own cards for FREE also!
I know Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so let’s get started with the how you can do this quickly and EASILY with your class!
Google Slides Printable Valentine’s Day Cards Lesson Prep
- The first thing I did was download these Amazing FREE backgrounds from here. You do not have to download them for this project because I am going to share my template, but the link is there in case you want to use them too!
2. Then, I created a template on Google Slides using 8 of the different backgrounds. You can access the template here. The template will be in View Only form. If you would like to use the template, in the menu bar click File —> Make a Copy. Then, you will have your own copy in Google Slides to share with your students!
3. I shared the Template with students via Google Classroom.
Google Slides Valentine’s Day Card Student Lesson
Using Google Classroom, students opened a copy of the template of backgrounds that I shared with them. First, students chose one background to use for the card, and deleted all of the other ones until they had only one slide left.
Then, students created a text box in the top left hand corner of their slide. After drawing the text box, students filled it in with a solid color using the bucket fill. This text box is the front cover of the card.
At this point, students designed the front cover of their card. This is a great time to show them how to change fonts, font size, and insert shapes! I showed them how to insert the heart shape and how to change the colors of the hearts!
THE NEXT STEP IS MOST IMPORTANT! After they are done designing the front cover, students have to turn the text box upside down! This is for printing purposes.
When the front cover is complete, have students add a text box in the lower right hand corner. This box will be the inside of the card where they can write their message. This is a great time to go over different greetings, closings and messages that students can use in their cards.
And that’s it! Now students have a design skill that they can use again in the future! You can have students turn them in via Google Classroom. Then, you can print them out in color or black and white! I know all about the lack of color printers in public schools, so I actually printed these out at home for the students since I did it with only a couple of classes. The messages were just so cute and I wanted them to be able to give them to their families!
Please comment below if you were able to use this for your classes!
