The Story of St. Valentine – More than Cards and Candied Hearts

The Story of St. Valentine – More than Cards and Candied Hearts

by the Voice of the Martyrs, with Cheryl Odden

If you’ve stumbled here from Pinterest, or some other site … welcome! While these books/lessons can stand alone, they are also part of a year-long series we have taught at our homeschool co-op. Each lesson builds in part on the one before. Some stories also have similar themes with the books that go before/after them. If you are interested in more information, or to see the complete booklist, check out our main page, More FIAR – Inspired Literature-Based Lesson Plans, especially for homeschool and homeschool co-ops. Thanks for looking around, and welcome to the site!

If you haven’t been introduced to this series, it is worth purchasing, as you will read them over and over. The Voice of the Martyrs Publishing team did a wonderful job on this book, as well as the rest of the series. (find them here) In addition to covering the lives of many wonderful saints (We especially LOVED looking at the life of William Tyndale last year, in another co-op lesson), they have also covered the stories behind three major holidays, St. Nicholas, St. Valentine, and St. Patrick. These are hard stories to read – but they are real. Based on true events, these heroes of the faith were willing to die for their beliefs. These stories, filled with large, beautiful illustrations, really show the glory of living out your faith and standing up for what’s right – even when the cost is great. 
 
 

What I Need:

Review:

The review for today’s lesson is only mainly done to put the lesson in a time context. If you’re using this lesson by itself, and not a part of the full Learning through Literature Co-op Curriculum, feel free to skip this section.    
To start, (either before the class or as you are speaking) draw a rough timeline on the board.
You will want space to show dates, and to be able to show that most of the books we have read have to do with the last couple hundred years. Most of America’s history has taken place during that time. However, long before America was a country – there were Empires that ruled in different parts of the world.
 
  • Point out 1776, when America became a Country
  • Point out the early 1800s, when the pioneers began to spread out across America, and Warm as Wool took place
  • Point out the late 1800s, when more people began to immigrate to America, and books like The Memory Coat and Fiona’s Lace took place.
  • Find “Today” on the timeline, and show this is us today, and that all of America’s history has happened in the last 250 years or so.
What was happening before America?
  • Some of us know there were many Indian or Native American Tribes that were living here
  • Over in Europe, there was a time period of castles, and kings and queens and knights (800-1200)
  • And before then, there were Empires, Romans and Greek and others (bc – 400+ AD)
  • And also … we know that our Lord Jesus, lived and died and rose again, right around that time period
  • Today’s story, the story of St. Valentine, happens, after the time of Jesus, during the time of the big Roman Empire.
*These dates are very very rough and general. I just wanted to show in general when these things happened to set the “time stage” for today’s lesson

Introduce the Story

Who knows what Holiday is happening tomorrow (or today or this week or soon)? (Valentine’s Day)
Does anyone know any of the story behind Valentines Day?
Our story today is about a man named Valentinus.* Valentinus lived about 200 years after Jesus died. During this time, Rome was trying to take over the world.
There were Emporers that had risen up that hated Christians. Not all of them did, but this man Claudius didn’t like them. But he especially wanted a strong army. He wanted lots of men to continue to help him expand his empire so he could take over more and more lands. But if you were going to fight in Claudius’s army, you had to commit for 25 years. Can you imagine your Dad going away for 25 years? You wouldn’t even know your Dad! And so of course, most people said, “no way, I don’t want to sign up for that” – so Claudius made a rule – No Getting Married!
Is that right?
No Mommy and Daddy?
No parents together?
No families with mommies and daddies and children?
Does that sound right?
Do you know that God loves the family? God actually gave us the family to express his desire for a bride on earth until he comes?* a larger concept, maybe too big to go into with a class, but to destroy the family was against God’s design for many reasons, some of which are definitely too big for this age group.  
So in this story, our main character Valentinus is going to stand up for what’s right.

Read the Story

As you read, be sure to reassure the class often,
  • Was God with Valentinus?
  • Did God bless Valentinus’ obedience?
  • Was Valentinus faithful to obey God, even when it was hard? Even when they were going to put him in prison?
  • Did he lose heart when he was put in prison? 
  • Did God answer his prayer? (for the jailer)
  • Even though he died, do you think God was with him? Do you think he blessed him?
“He who wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, or for the gospel’s sake, will save it” Mark 8:35, Matthew 16:24
 
“Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness” Matthew 5:10 

Project – Reading Comprehension, Order of Events

The two printable worksheets below work together to reinforce reading comprehension.
First, hand out the sheet with the pictures and have the class cut them out and see if they can place them in the order that they happened. If you want to make it easier, you can remove some of the pictures or help them with the first few. You notice there are only 6 spots in the order – you have lots of extra pictures, so many will be left out.
Once they get their pictures in order, pass out the Story of St. Valentine sheet.
  • Did they like the story? (How many stars?)
  • What was their favorite part?
(For those who can write, help them write a few words or a sentence. If they can’t write yet, have them use one of the picture cutouts and glue it in this spot. *hence all the extra pictures.)
  • Finally, have them glue down six of the pictures in the order they happened within the story

Handwriting Sheet

As always, remind the class to start their letters at the top. I often use this song from Handwriting Without Tears (sung to the tune of if you’re happy and you know it):
Where do you start your letters? (At the top!)
Where do you start your letters? (At the top!)
If you want to write a letter,
Than you better, better, better,
Remember – to start it
at the top!
This week’s verse is taken from John 15:13, and if you’ve been following along with this Learning through Literature Series, it is very very similar to last week’s verse.
If you have time, it is neat to point out – Valentine, like so many other faithful brothers and sisters who came before and after him, was willing to lay down his life for his Lord and the truth that God showed him. Jesus, in comparison laid down his life for us – while we were still his enemies.
This verse can apply to us, as Christians, but it is especially speaking about the Lord Jesus. Yet in Romans, is says that, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5) and that we were “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Colossians 1). So how can it say “Jesus laid down his life for his friends?” ….because Jesus is called the “friend of sinners”… from his standpoint, he is the friend of sinners, the one desiring all men, even those against him, to come to him. It is only from our perspective that we are his enemies. From his perspective, he is dying for his friends, longing for them to come to know and love the Father the way he knows and loves the father, because he knows how much the father loves them. Maybe a little too much to share in entirety with the class, but something that warmed my heart as I thought of sharing on these verses.
That’s it for this week! To see what we’ve done so far in our Homeschool Co-op’s Literature Series this year, click here. Each lesson  builds on the one before and seeks to cover basic geography within the book, historical contexts, a handwriting sheet and a language arts lesson, as it applies to the book. 
Or, you can check out the complete Learning the ABC’s through Literature Series, which is a similar series that we did with this same group of kiddos a year earlier. Both of these series of books have been inspired by the Five in a Row curriculum, with many of the books being the same. The ideas, implementation of it for a co-op, and printables are all my own, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for stopping by to check it out!