Valentine’s Day is easy if you plan on having just cards and candy but Valentine’s Day Party ideas are a different story, especially when kids are involved. They want fun activities to go along with the party aspect of the day. With these fun and kid-friendly Valentine party ideas you’ll be able to help wear down the sugar rush from all that chocolate and candy hearts, from games to easy crafts to party favors.
Printable Puzzles
Printable Valentine games are great for a classroom Valentine’s Day party. They balance out of the more active games kids may play, while letting the kids exercise their brains at the same time. Print a few Sudoku puzzles, Valentine word scrambles, Valentine word searches and for older kids, Valentine cryptograms. Download them here, and don’t forget to print the answer keys for each of the games you choose.
Valentine’s Day Party Ideas to Get Them Moving
Get kids up and about with these Valentine’s Day Party Ideas that are activities requiring movement to help counteract the sugar rush from sweet Valentine treats.
Conversational Relay
Divide the group into two or three teams. Have all the teams, one child at a time, carry conversation hearts across the room from one bowl to another bowl using a pair of chopsticks (easy) or by sucking them up with a straw (harder). If a child drops his heart along the way, he has to go back to the bowl, get another heart and start the race over.
Broken Hearts
Make copies of the broken heart printables onto several sheets of card stock and cut out the designs. Then cut designs apart along the lines indicated. Break kids into teams of three or four and have them piece together the puzzle hearts. Whichever team puts their broken heart together fastest wins.
A Perfect Match
This Valentine’s party idea is simple and uses only construction paper and scissors. Cut out heart shapes from construction paper and write a famous word pair on each heart (such as “peanut butter / jelly” or “salt / pepper”), then cut apart the hearts into two pieces with one word on each piece. Mix up all the pieces, and then hand each child one piece. Then the children have to find their match.
Musical Hearts
This is a physical activity based game using hearts with instructions to do something on them. It works like musical chairs, except the child does the action written in the heart they land in instead of sitting on a chair.
To play: Gather your materials. We used foam hearts From the craft store because they hold up well To stepping and walking on. You’ll also need a marker to write on the hearts and music to start and stop.
Write out different tasks for the child to do when they land On each of the hearts – things like jumping on one foot, crab walk, 5 jumping jacks, do a silly dance, etc. Lay the hearts with the activities written in them in a circle in the floor, face down.
Just like musical chairs, start the music to begin playing. It’s just like musical chairs except that when the music stops every child does the task on the heart that they were standing on when the music stopped. The great thing about this version is that no one has to leave the game. I continues in for a set time, then the kids get a drink break after working up a thirst playing.
Leaning Towers
Have children build tall towers using conversation hearts. They can race against the clock, and the child with the highest tower (that hasn’t toppled over) when the time is up wins. Kids will want to play this again and again.
Under Sweet Wraps
Bring several pairs of mittens and some wrapped candy for this Valentine’s Day party dexterity race. Divide the kids into two or three teams and have each team sit in a row. Add wrapped candies to bowls, enough so each player on the team gets a candy. The first person on each team puts on a pair of mittens, and takes a piece of candy out of the bowl to unwrap.
Pin the Lips on Mrs Smiley
All you need for this game is a large poster board and red construction paper. Draw a larger smiley face in the poster board, complete with hair, eyes and nose, but no lips. Draw a set of lips for each child playing, using the construction paper and cut them out. Just like pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, blindfold each child then hand them a set of lips with tape attached to the back. The child who gets the lips closest to where they should be in Mrs. Smiley’s face is the winner. You may want to do a light pencil outline of lips to give the children a target and make it easier to determine a winner.
Torn Hearts
Draw a heart onto a sheet of paper and make copies for every kid in the classroom. Now have all the kids hold the paper behind their backs and try to tear it out along the lines as best they can—but no peeking. Whoever has the paper that looks most like a heart wins.
After he’s unwrapped the candy, he then hands the next kid in line the bowl and the mittens. The first team that unwraps the entire bowlful of candy wins. Here are some candy ideas: Hershey’s Kisses, peppermints or cinnamon disks, or fun-size candy bars.
Val-ables
Spell out some Valentine words or phrases on blank paper and cut them apart at the syllables or words. Mix them all up, and then give one syllable to each child, facedown, until all the syllables have been passed out. No peeking. Then have them find the rest of their mates to form their Valentine word or phrase.
Here are some good phrases to use: con-ver-sa-tion hearts • va-len-tine’s day • doz-en ros-es • bow and ar-rows • A-phro-dit-e • hugs and kiss-es.
Heart Target Practice
Make origami paper airplanes (you can call them “love birds” if the kids will let you) and make a heart-shaped target from masking tape on the floor. Have kids aim at the target and let their birds fly to see which one can land closest to the center of the heart.
Valentine’s Day Party Ideas for Crafts
Save time for some fun crafting ideas guaranteed to put a smile on the faces of budding artists.
Simply Marbleous
Make marbled hearts using red and white Model Magic™. Using 1 part red to 4 parts white, combine the Model Magic until you’ve made pink. Then pinch a small piece of clay from each color: red, pink and white, and knead the pieces together until the colors begin to swirl (don’t blend too much—you want the colors to stay distinct).
When you’ve got a nice marbled effect, form the clay into a flattened heart shape. If you can’t get the heart shape quite right, trim the edges with scissors or a heart-shaped cookie cutter. Now you can decide what you want to do with it: you can attach a magnet to the back and put it on your fridge. Or, use a pencil point to make a small hole near the top of the heart before it dries. Then thread some ribbon through the hole to wear it as a pendant.
Easy Heart Suncatchers
You’ll need:
- A heart cut out of thick white cardstock to use as a template
- Tissue paper, cut or torn into 1×1 inch pieces
- Scissors
- Foam paint brushes
- Clear page protectors
- Mod Podge
- Pencil
Have the children cut or tear small squares of tissue paper, enough to equal the size of the cardboard heart template. They should aim to cover the plastic sheet with tissue paper squares. Then have the kids spread a thick layer of Mod Podge over their sheet of plastic, using the foam brush.
Press the tissue paper squares into the Mod Podge, then use the paintbrush again to découpage the tissue paper squares directly onto the plastic to create a second layer of Mod Podge. They’ll have Mod Podge, tissue paper, then Mod Podge on top.
Give each child the cardboard heart template while the tissue paper “stained glass” is drying. When the glue is dry, gently bend the plastic sheet and peel the découpaged tissue paper away from it. Have each child trace a heart, using a pencil and the cardboard heart template, onto the tissue paper, then use scissors to cut it out. They’ll have a suncatcher they can attach to a window with either double sided tape or a piece of yarn attached to the heart and hung from a curtain rod.
Edible Jewelry
Craft some edible jewelry using cut-up licorice pieces, Life Savers® and round cereal to string onto long pieces of elastic. For younger kids, be sure to tape one end of the elastic to the table so the candy doesn’t fall off before you tie the elastic together. Older kids can use a needle to string gumdrops and jelly beans onto a piece of strong, knotted thread.
Valentine’s Day Party Ideas for Treats
All-Thumbs Cookies
This Valentine’s Day party idea is a fun and easy tweak on traditional thumbprint cookies. Roll sugar cookie dough into 1-inch balls. Press your thumb into the dough twice in a “V” shape to make a heart, then bake as directed. After they’ve baked, fill the heart indentations with raspberry jelly, melted chocolate or pink frosting. Package them up in a cellophane bag tied with a pink or red ribbon.
Mini Minty Hearts
Turn leftover mini candy canes from Christmas into chocolate–covered hearts for Valentine’s Day. Arrange two mini candy canes into a heart shape. Knead a Tootsie Roll until it’s pliable and use bits of it to join the candy canes together at the top and bottom. Then dip the hearts into melted white or dark chocolate (or both!) and let them harden on waxed paper. Slip them into vellum envelopes and send them home with partygoers for a sweet reminder of the day.