Kid Friendly Valentine's Day Activities
Valentine’s Day is a special day of the year whether you are young or old. It’s a day to celebrate love and friendship. Jennifer Carver, of Spaceships and Laser Beams, is here to share some kid-friendly ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
Relationships are important to children, just as they are to adults. Allowing children to acknowledge the special people in their life is a great way to help them celebrate the day. This can be accomplished in a variety of fun and festive ways.
Idea #1: Arrange a Valentine making station. Gather blank greeting cards, envelopes, Valentine’s Day themed stickers, colorful trims in red, pink and purple, buttons and scraps of paper. Create a crafting station with printables, scissors, glue, adhesive and plenty of markers and pens. Help the children make a list of special friends and family members they’d like to remember on Valentine’s Day.
Idea #2: Organize a service scavenger hunt. Children enjoy doing small acts of service to show love. Have your children brainstorm a list of appropriate tasks they can do to show love for others. Some ideas include:
· Making a sibling’s bed.
· Taking flowers to their teacher.
· Dropping off a treat on a friend’s doorstep.
· Coloring a picture for a grandparent.
· Giving a friend a present.
· Making cookies or candy for a neighbor.
Idea #3: Plan a “heart attack”. No, not that kind of heart attack. This kind of heart attack involves creating a copious variety of paper hearts on which the children write down favorite memories or thoughtful words to describe the individual (or family) being “heart attacked”. Once the hearts are created and filled out, the children carefully attach them to a neighbor’s or teacher’s windshield or doorframe as a fun surprise! The finished product looks like a bunch of hearts staged an attack. Consider this a nicer alternative to the toilet papering days of old!
Idea #4: Visit a nursing home. If you live close enough to a nursing home, take older children to visit some of the residents who might be lonely. Take a Bingo game (you can print free versions off the internet) and boxes of conversation hearts to use as game markers for a fun Valentine’s Day themed twist. Residents will love the visit!
Idea #5: Decorate Valentine’s Day themed cookies. Children love cookies, especially when they are in charge of decorating them! Bake or buy a batch of your favorite sugar cookies. Line and fill a muffin tin with cookie toppings like sprinkles, cinnamon hearts, sanding sugar and chocolate chips for decorating. Fill disposable frosting bags with tinted frosting. Then, let the kids go crazy decorating cookies to eat and share with friends. Set aside a plate or two of cookies to wrap up and take to someone of the children’s choosing. This could be a great friend, wonderful teacher or lonely neighbor.
What are some of your kid-friendly Valentine’s Day activities? Add your own and make it a day your children will not soon forget!