Sunday, February 1, 2009

St. Valentine's Day Ideas

1. Buy 2 dozen mylar heart balloons at Party City (presuming they go on sale again). There's nothing like a true overabundance of balloons for kids of any age! At least some of them will last for a month and that's about when they will get tired of them. We do use them for science (density, bouyancy, atmosphere, gradients, temperature/pressure), and they play games with them but, mostly, for a month, random family members will go up to other family members with a big bunch of heart balloons and say, "I love you!" And that's worth $15 to me.

2. Make a Valentine treasure hunt. We do this on heart shapes, naturally. The kids remembered that last year's hunt ended in the chapel with a big pile of converstaion heart candies because Jesus is the biggest sweetheart! The conversation hearts get played with a lot too - good reading for some, good eating for others! The kids may do seperate hunts for each other.

3. Make Valentines for family, friends, and the nursing home. Share the love! Surprising someone with a valentine is great fun. Teaching the kids to think about who needs to be shown that they are loved and valued and ways to do that... well that even beats teaching chemistry!

4 Decorations!
  • We'll put up the cards, of course.
  • Usually we make animals and funny people out of hearts.
  • For some reason the big hearts with pleated arms and legs and little heart hands and feet are always a top pick.
  • Heart mobiles are also something we tend to do a lot.
  • Streamers and maybe a big poster from our Big Roll of Paper are possible.
  • The balloons also make things festive.
5. Surprises! I like to have little surprises for people to find. Just little stuff - notes or hearts or little candies.

6. Desserts! My favorite cookie of the year! I put cinnamon oil in the frosting. I also love this idea: cream filled cupcakes. Yum! Yum! Especially if I just do chocolate fudge cake mix for the cupcakes and add cherry flavor to the cream.

7. Worksheets, mazes, printables and craft ideas from my favorite sites:
8 The real St. Valentine.

1 comment:

Garden State Kate said...

Fun,fun,fun!
Valentines Day crafts are so much fun! I'll post my plans on Monday.