Holidays are fun times to play games with our kids. Some parents feel like they don’t have the imagination or time to come up with special games. If that’s you, I’m coming to your rescue! 🙂 Whether you are planning the games for a school Valentine’s Day party like I was, or just want some fun things to do at home, I’ve got a few Valentine’s Day Games ideas for you!
Easy, Low Cost Valentine’s Day Pinata
I did this on Friday with my daughter’s preschool class, and they had a BLAST! Unlike the usual expensive paper mache pinatas, my tissue paper version is inexpensive, and fast to prepare. I spent less than $10.00 on the whole shabang for a class of 12 kids.
Supplies Needed:
- 6 sheets of different colored tissue paper (red, pink, white, etc.)
- Coordinating curling ribbon
- Small, Valentine-themed goodies for inside the pinata. I used Valentine’s Day stampers, Valentine’s erasers, and some heart shaped wrapped candy.
Directions:
- Layer each sheet of the tissue paper slightly askew, one on top of each other. This allows each of the colors to show once brought up and around the goodies.
- Plop all the goodies in the center of the layered tissue paper.
- Pull all the ends of the tissue paper up towards the center, and gather them together.
- Use a length of the curling ribbon to tie off the pinata (see photo below).
- Voila! Your easy-peasy pinata is ready to go!
Steal My Heart Valentine’s Day Game
This game is courtesy of one of my favorite websites for party and craft ideas: Family Fun Magazine. We used this game at my 4th grade daughter’s Valentine’s Day party, and the kids (and teacher!) had a blast! We played it as a family too, and though I thought my husband couldn’t beat my record of 50 in one minute, he stuck it to me by seeing my 50, and raising me 4 more. Ugh! I think I’ll demand a re-match!
Supplies Needed:
- Bag of small conversation hearts candy
- pair of chopsticks (I bought mine for 25 cents at a party store)
- plate or cereal bowl
- In a classroom setting, I would use about 1/2 bag of hearts and one set of chopsticks per group of 4 kids
Directions:
- Pour about 1/2 bag of conversation heart candy onto a plate or into a bowl.
- Each person has 1 minute (allow more time for younger kids, up to 5 minutes) to use only the chopsticks to move as many conversation hearts as they can from the plate/bowl into a pile.
- The person who moves the most heart candy wins!
Custom-Made Valentine’s Day Mad Lib
OK, it’s hard to come up with games for older kids that don’t make them feel, well, little. I decided to create a custom-made Mad Lib for my 4th grader’s class. The kids worked in groups of 4, completed the mad lib story, and then read them out loud to the rest of their class. The funny fill-in-the-blank stories had everyone laughing! Oh, and did I mention that the kids practiced using parts of speech? Sneaky, huh?!
I tried to paste my formatted Mad Lib in this post for you to use, but alas, it wouldn’t work. Normally in a mad lib (remember back to when you did them), the story has fill in the blank spaces with a part of speech (noun, adjective, etc.) listed below the space. In my version below, the blank spaces are indicated by [ ] and the part of speech.
Directions:
- Split kids into small groups
- Have one person act as the secretary. Only the secretary gets to see the story.
- Secretaries ask the rest of the team members to fill in the blanks, by giving them the part of speech indicated beneath each blank.
- Read the mixed-up stories out loud and have some good laughs!
Valentine’s Day Mad Lib
It was Valentine’s Day in Mrs. Smith’s class, and all the
[plural noun] were [adjective] at work. They were
hanging heart-shaped [plural noun] and [color] and
[color] streamers all over the room.
It looked [adjective] !
One of the moms brought [plural noun] for a snack.
Another mom read them a Valentine’s story about a
[noun] falling in love with a [noun] .
The kids played some games. During one game, the kids had to pick
up [plural noun] with chopsticks. It was so
[adjective] to watch that everyone was laughing.
A [adjective] time was had by all!
Key:
Adjective: Describes something/someone – soft, messy, short, tall
Noun: person, place or thing-umbrella, nose, teacher, dog
Exclamation: a sound like-Ouch! Wow! Yipee! Ick!
