I’m signed up to help with my daughter’s Valentine classroom party this year. I love elementary schools during the holidays, especially Valentines. There’s so many fun ways to decorate and celebrate with hearts. While I was thinking of what I’m going to help with during my daughter’s party, I thought I’d share my ideas here. Are you helping with a party this year? Possibly a Room Parent?

I’ve broken it down by activity below, as I think it’s best to have rotating stations. You can easily fill 1 hour with 4-5 stations set up around the room. Each station sharing something different for the kids to do, eat, or create for about 10-15 minutes at a time. You can always gather everyone together at the end to eat their snack and listen to a story.

Here’s a few ideas for games, crafts, food, and story time: 

GAMES for a Valentine’s Party:

• Heart Healthy Exercise – This is one of my favorites, I do it almost every year. The kids get into it and it will keep them going for a good 10 minutes. And the kids are exercising, even better.

• Valentine Heart Puzzles – You can make these ahead of time and the kids have to figure them out, or this can be a fun craft for the kids. Maybe have the kids swap puzzles and try to put each other’s puzzles back together.

• Teacher Heart Attack – Give your child’s teacher a “heart attack” by having all the kids write down what they love about their teacher on a heart. Then take each heart and tape them up on her door or onto a giant poster sized heart. He or she will LOVE it.

• Giant Heart Tic Tac Toe – Create a tic tac toe game board with a red poster and a few handmade heart bean bags. You could make a few of these so 4-6 kids could be playing all at the same time.

• Hide and Seek the Heart – Again, with the same handmade bean bags from the tic tac toe game, you can play a game of hide and seek. This is best done with the whole class. Have one child leave the room. Another child will hide the heart, and then the first child will come in and find it. The other children can help  by saying hot or cold!

• Heart Letter Match – this game could be played with any type of learning objective. You could create 3-4 games of these and let the kids match them up and take turns with each set. 

CRAFTS for a Valentine’s Party:

• Paper Heart Lei – this is fun to have each child create, simply with straws and hearts. Here’s a video I’ve done making cutting hearts a breeze!

• Pipe Cleaner Heart Glasses – or love goggles if you will. With just 3 pipe cleaners, each child in the class will go home with a fun new pair of glasses!

• Valentine’s Coloring Pages – download and print off these free coloring pages. If you’re done with a specific activity early, these are a great way to keep the kids focused at their station.

• Heart Pop Up Cards – There are so many ways to create a pop up card. If you have the supplies ready, the kids can come up with what ever they’d like to add to make a pop.

FOOD for a Valentine’s Party:

• Heart Shaped Cookies Creatures – Make a big batch of heart shaped sugar cookies and let the kids decorate them to look like fun heart shaped creatures.

• Heart Shaped Snack – you can pretty much form or cut a heart into any snack for kids. Cheese, crackers, cookies, bread, watermelon, strawberries. You could even make a fun heart shaped snack kabob on a wood skewer.

• Marshmallow Heart Necklaces – These are too cute and the kids will love to thread through a marshmallow, making a fun necklace. This idea comes from Cute Food For Kids.

STORY TIME for a Valentine’s Party:

• Happy Valentine’s Day, Mouse – from the creator of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Cute story!
• The Day it Rained Hearts – this story fits living in Seattle!
• The Night Before Valentines – follows the rhyme from the night before Christmas.
• Amelia Bedelia’s Valentines – she is always doing silly things.

Here are a few more links to party ideas and classroom parties:

• Room Mom Spot by Volunteer Spot
• Love Crush Party by Hostess with the Mostess
• Milk and Cookie Valentine Party ideas from Pizzazzerie

What are you planning to do? If you’re helping in your child’s classroom, share what fun ideas and crafts you’re going to create.

A few years back, we made really fun giant Valentine puzzles. These were great. Perfect for little hands to help with, cutting and forming the puzzle. I thought this would be fun to do for my children’s friends or classmates, so we made a mini version. This little heart puzzle is simple and fun to make, and fits perfectly in an envelope. Just add a little candy or pencil to make it complete.

Supplies for Mini Paper Valentines:

• colored cardstock paper
• scissors (child-friendly if you’ve got them)
• black marker or crayons
• envelope

1. Cut out a small heart, about 3-4 inches across.

2. Write something on the front. It could say “Be Mine” and then have your child’s name on there, so then the other children would have to finish the puzzle to see who it was from.

3. Cut up your heart into puzzle shape pieces and add them to your envelope.

Place in a treat or toy and seal up the envelope. Hopefully your Valentine won’t be too puzzled!

The best thing about robots is they can be tailored for both boys and girls. They are easy for little ones because you can construct them from simple shapes such as squares, circles, rectangles and ovals. Embellishing them a bit gives school age children a chance to express their creativity and give their robots character. A fun valentine to give to friends and family!

For these Robot Valentines you will need:

• Card stock
• Construction paper
• Sequins
• Marker
• Googly eyes
• Glue stick
• White craft glue
• Scissors
• Red glitter

First cut and fold card stock into cards. Use scissors or a paper cutter to cut some simple shapes from construction paper. Use the glue stick to attach the shapes to the card stock.

Draw arms, legs, and antennae on with a fine point marker. You can decorate them with a marker as well if you like.

Embellish the robots with sequins, using white craft glue to attach them as antennae tops, hands and wheels. To make the mouths, draw vertical lines on a piece of white paper then cut a half-circle shape so that the lines look like teeth.

Use your finger to spread some white craft glue onto a piece of construction paper then cover with red glitter. Knock off excess and cut two hearts from the glittered paper. Glue stick the hearts to the robots. Finally, use white craft glue to attach the googly eyes.

Write your Valentine message inside!

I’ve made pop up cards before – these fun Valentine Heart Pop Up Cards. I’ve just given them a fresh new look with some much improved photos (they were sad little snapshots from the early days!) This is a great card for you or your little one to help make for Valentines.

Well I’ve got another version of the pop up card. A card that pops out! It’s perfect for creating something different and festive on Valentines.

Supplies for Pop Up Pop Out Cards:

• 1 sheet of paper, any size or color
• pencil
• scissors
• 1 sheet of cardstock paper, larger than the first paper
• markers, crayons or stickers to decorate

1. Fold your smaller paper in half. With your pencil draw a line on the fold. The line should be as long as you want, but make sure not to go too far to the edge. You can also place it on the top or bottom half of the fold, it doesn’t have to be in the middle.

2. Cut along your pencil line.

3. Fold back each of the cut pieces, forming it into 2 triangle shapes, and making a good crease.

4. Bend the folds back in and open the card. Bend the folds through the front and pop them out to look like a mouth.

I love this one and you can do lots of things with this mouth. I made “Hot Lips”, but you could draw a face around the mouth or make it an animal beak. I’ve also seen these pop up cards with a frog mouth. Way to much fun with these pop up cards.

Glue your second piece of paper to the back of the card, so you don’t see the hole in the middle. Add marker or stickers to make it stand out.

Have fun making your fun Valentine cards POP!

I have such mixed feelings about Valentine’s Day.  I love boxes of candy.  I love roses.  I love the pink and red combo.  I love cards.  I love cute, homemade stuff.  I love my kids.  I love my husband.  I should love Valentine’s Day, right?  Well, I do.  Really, I do.  But, I don’t really love the thought of giving more toys, right after Christmas.  I’m kinda over that…so, I usually give the kids a new book.  And, I’m out of gift ideas for the husband, I used every one of them for Christmas, and his birthday that’s just four days before.  Rough life, I know.  See what I mean about mixed feelings?  It’s like, “oooh, fun!” and “ugh” all jumbled together.

Hey, remember when kids used to secretly leave Valentines at your door?  They would ring the door bell and run away, remember??  That was awesome.  What happened to that??  Or, is it still around, and I just haven’t clued into the fact that I’m the only one not getting secret Valentines?  Maybe y’all have piles and piles of love notes covering your door steps.  Sad.

Anyhoo, something else that I love is traditions.  So far, on Valentine’s, the kids will have a treasure hunt, with clues written on hearts that lead them all around the house, until at last they find their new book and a little treat.  We also write a card/love note to each one of them, to include with their Valentine. (I blogged about it, here.) It’s way fun, but that’s pretty much the extent of our festivities…so, I decided that I would come up with a new tradition, to prolong the whole love theme, so it lasts the rest of the day.   After that, they’re back to being called “little terd-butts,” until Valentine’s Day rolls around again.  Just kidding.  Juuuuuuust kidding.

So, here’s what I’m thinking we’ll do this year…

I’m going to type up a paper, as follows:

For breakfast, I love…

For lunch, I love…

For dinner, I love…

For snack, I love…

To drink, I love…

To read, I love…

To watch, I love…

To play, I love…

I’ll cut them into little wordstrips, and put them in a bag.  A couple days before Valentine’s Day, I will have every kid draw out two papers, without showing anyone else.  I’ll probably add a couple duplicates of “to read” and “to play,” since I have a plethora of children.  The kids will then need to fill in the blanks, and give them back to me, so I can start planning our Valentine’s Day.  I want to fill the whole day, doing things that are LOVED, by different family members.

So, for all I know we could be eating Cookie Crisp for breakfast, Cookie Crisp for lunch, and McDonalds for dinner.  Snack might be beef jerky, and Bug Juice to drink.  We’ll probably read something like ‘Go Away’ Big Green Monster, play bowling on the Kinect, and watch iCarly.  But, I don’t care.  It will be awesome, because everyone will get a couple things that they love.  And, Valentine’s is about love, right?  Or, was it chocolate?  I get mixed up.

To jazz it up, I’m thinking of not telling who picked the designated food or activity, and having everyone take a guess.  Maybe whomever gets the most guesses right, will win an extra little Valentine.  Or, maybe just a love tap.  And, of course we’ll still do our traditional Valentine’s treasure hunt.

I’m excited.

Do you have any fun Valentine’s traditions??

When it comes to New Year’s Eve, I’m generally so worn out from Christmas, that all I want to do is curl up in bed with the husband, watch a few episodes of Parks and Recreation on Netflix, and fall into a deep slumber…by 9:00.  Oh, and somehow the 5 kids are all in bed sleeping, too.  That’s how fun I am, at this time of the year.  But, I keep hearing about all of these hilarious and fun group games, and I’m thinking I might…MIGHT…summon my inner wild-child and do the whole New Year’s thing.  Midnight, pots, pans, kissing, and all.   Ooooh, crazy.  I know.

I’ve been getting after my friends to share with me their favorite group games, check it out…some fun stuff!

Cheetos Head

Have the group split into two evenly numbered teams, preferably with the same number of men on each team.  Each team will need a can or two of shaving cream and a container of cheese puffs or bag of puffy Cheetos.  Have two chair set up across the room and a line of tape on the floor several feet away (your preference.)  For round 1, each team chooses one man to sit in the designated chair, across the room.  That man will then get a hefty dose of shaving cream on his face, as if he had a full beard.  The remaining team members have to stand behind the tape line, on the floor, and toss Cheetos at their teammates face, for one minute.  Whichever team gets the most stuck Cheetos, wins round 1.  Move on to round 2, with another teammate to take the chair.  Obviously, the Cheetos beard could be done on a woman, but you can keep that information private, if you want.  The team with the most Cheetos on the face, after totaling the rounds, wins!  This is one of those games where a camera is so necessary!

Rain in the Face

Everyone sits in a circle, with a designated “it” person standing in the middle.  Whoever is in the middle is holding a cup with a small amount of water in it.  They will announce that they are thinking of something.  Such as, “I’m thinking of a country,” or “I’m thinking of a famous woman,” or “I’m thinking of an animal.”  They will walk around to each person in the circle, and that person gets one guess as to what “it” is thinking of.  Basically, you DON’T want to guess the right answer, if you do, you get “rain in the face,” or a cup of water in the face (only fill the cup a little, unless you’re feeling crazy-nuts.)  So, what’s funny is everyone will be trying to come up with the most obscure answers to be able to avoid the water.  But, you never know…maybe “it” came up with an obscure thing in their mind.  They keep going around the circle until someone guesses, and that person will be “it” next.  You may want to have a limit of how many times “it” can go around the circle, before they have to think of something else.

Cookie on My Forehead

You may have heard of this one, and there are a variety of ways to set up the game.  But, here’s mine…have everyone split into two teams.  Each team send a member to the middle of the room and is given a cookie to place on their forehead (they will have to tilt their head back).  You can just use Oreos or Chips A’hoy to make it easy.  At the count of 3, the opposing team members have to try and maneuver the cookie from their forehead to their mouth.  Whoever gets it first, earns a point for their team.  If it falls on the floor, they can pick it up and start over.  Or, you can say “they’re out,” whichever you prefer.  This is another fun game to pull out the camera.  You will see some crazy body contortions going on!

Left Center Right Dice Game

My sister-in-law was just telling me about this dice game, Left Center Right (or LCR), that sounds like a riot!  It’s also a fast-paced game that is easy enough for kids to play too, assuming they know “right” and “left.”

To play, you need at least 3 players with 3 chips each.  To take the intensity up a notch, many people suggest using quarters (or dimes), rather than the chips, so there is a fun reward for the winner.  If you’re not into playing with money, you could even use pieces of wrapped candy.  When a player has all 3 chips, they roll all three dice.  The number of “L” dice that show up determine how many of the chips/quarters are passed to the left.  The number of “R” dice determine how many chips/quarters are passed to the right.  And, “C” means a chip/quarter is placed in the middle of the table.  A player can only roll the number of dice that reflect the number of chips they have.  Everyone is anxious to have new chips/quarters passed to them, because it ensures they stay in the game longer, giving them a chance to win the pot in the center.  The player who is last left with chips, wins the pot.  Whoo!  I have seen this game sold at Target, or if you get it from Amazon, they have the two-day shipping or overnight available.

Mating Season

Do you like that name?  I made it up.  So, this is a fun game for big groups.  For every person playing, you will need a piece of paper with an animals name written on it.  Each animal needs to be written two times.  Have everyone stand in the middle of the room and toss all the paper pieces (with the animal written on it) into the air.  Once they fall, everyone scrambles to grab one.  They immediately need to start acting like the animal and making their sound, while looking for their mate.  Once they have found their animal mate, they hurry and sit down.  The last pair standing is “out.”  And, round 2 begins…

And, there you have it.  I would love to hear about some of YOUR favorite party games!

And, what’s a party without munchies??  Here’s a couple of my very favorites…

Caramel Toffee Dip (great with cut Granny Smith apples!)

Fried Avocado with Salsa Ranch Dip (I’m obsessed!)

You can find even more group games at “Or so she says…” like Psychiatrist, Secret Adverb, Word Nerd, and M&M Pass.  See you there :)

Have a fantastic New Year!

We’ve been rocking out to the holiday tunes since the day after Thanksgiving. We don’t usually listen to holiday music any other time of the year, so we make sure to listen to it all. month. long. How about you? Do you rock out to Jingle Bells, Let it Snow, or Baby it’s Cold Outside? What are your favorite Holiday tunes?

Here are a few of our favorites:

Baby It’s Cold Outside. This is my favorite version. The lyrics are so great.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Michael Buble is so adorable, charming, and has that amazing voice!

Sister Winter. Oh, how I love Sufjan Stevens. This whole album is fabulous.

White Christmas. A major classic. I love to watch this movie with my dad. Good ol’ Bing.

Share your favorites. Am I missing a must-hear song?

With the countdown to Christmas approaching single digits tomorrow, chances are that at this point you’re not obsessing about how to make things more eco-friendly (that’s not a judgment, just an educated guess). Life has a sneaky way of trumping altruism, but there’s still time to make green choices before the Fat Man descends down the chimney and the ball drops in Time Square.

Perhaps there are are still a few people to check off your own naughty-or-nice gift list. Consider giving gifts that won’t someday end up in a landfill: like music or cooking lessons, or tickets to a show. And nothing says “I love you” this holiday season like Carbon Offsets! (Yes I’m being cheeky, but you’ve got to admit the idea has its merits).

Buying local is another great way to reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gases. Besides steering clear of the resources used to transport a gift from China to your home, buying local usually means less packaging – one more green thumbs up for the planet.

If you’ve got a few last minute gifts to buy, you’re likely to have a little wrapping left to do too. Might I suggest green wrappings. A few years ago I tried out my first “Make and Take” by recycling old magazines into paper that (I think) would rival any hipster-chic packaging at Urban Outfitters.

For my little guy I took advantage of some Sesame Street Advertisements (just tape or glue-stick together):

And we ended up with this under our tree:

I think this year’s samples are an upgrade:

You can find additional wrapping ideas in this Gaiam Life article.

No Green Holiday article is complete without touching on the great tree debate: real or fake? Most have probably already trimmed their tannenbaum for this year, but a little education could prove useful for years to come.  My husband and I seem to have the same “discussion” every year about this (well, he calls it arguing. I call it discussing.)

Hubs favors the fake tree for its supposed savings in the long term, the ease of putting it up and because he convinced our real tree will some how spontaneously burst into flames. I say something that’s $20 – $40 each year, smells fabulous (and without the help of odd fake fragrances or Scentsy candles), is virtually free of carcinogens and can be “treecycled,” is a much better long term investment for our family and the future of the planet.

If you’re looking for a little more info on the subject, I’ve found these websites helpful.

• National Christmas Tree Association
• Earth 911
• About.com

Regardless of which tree you’ve chosen, it’s hard to have a Blue Christmas when you’re thinking green. So what are your favorite traditions to make the season merry and bright for the planet?

Winter break is on it’s way with just 4 more days and my kids are out of school for 2 weeks… ya, 2 weeks, people! ;) So we’re looking for fun things to do and make. If you are too, add these free coloring pages to your list. Download and print them out and they are ready to color. Enjoy!