Red, white, pink, flowers, candy, chocolate, cards, hearts, a saint? What comes to mind when you think of Valentine’s Day? How do you celebrate the day, if you do? Do you have a special dinner? Do you show your love to those who are close to you? Check out the quote below from NationalGeographicKids.com to learn about St. Valentine.

The holiday we know today got its name from a man named Valentine. While a few different stories are told about what he did to inspire the holiday, many people believe he’s celebrated for his role as a Roman priest who helped couples secretly get married.

As the story goes, Emperor Claudius II of Rome—who reigned from the year 268 A.D. to 270 A.D.—banned marriage because he thought unmarried men made better soldiers. Valentine thought this was unfair and decided to break the rules and perform marriages anyway. He kept the ceremonies quiet, but he was eventually caught and later killed on February 14 of the year 270 for defying the emperor. Right before he died, Valentine supposedly wrote the first-ever “valentine” to his jailer’s daughter, with whom he’d fallen in love. Later, in the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I declared the day of his death as St. Valentine’s Day.

Click here to learn even more about Valentine’s Day.

It is clear that students in our class get very excited to pass out their Valentines and share some treats with one another. Check out our activity from this morning. Along with our treat bags, we spent time making cards with our Reading Buddies, and doing some activities such as unscrambling words, a word search, and solving a Valentine’s Day cryptic puzzle.