Six Easy Ways to Make Valentine’s Day Fun for Kids

Valentine’s Day can be stressful. Commercials for chocolate, jewelry, cards, and dinners can send the holiday into overload (both on your wallet and your blood sugar).

If you have kids and want to celebrate the day, but a bit lower-key (and lower budget), there are some things you can do to be fabulously festive for Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day Breakfast Ideas

• Make breakfast a bit more special. Serve heart-shaped pancakes. Don’t have time? Take frozen waffles and cut them into small hearts using a knife or cookie cutter. Even a pat of butter can be a little heart.

Valentine’s Day Lunch and Snack Ideas

• Make the kids’ lunch into a Valentine’s Day explosion. Have red cranberry juice, red jello, and cut the bread for a sandwich into a heart shape. Maybe even have a red or pink napkin too.
• For a kids’ after school snack, maybe have some heart-shaped sugar cookies that the kids can decorate, or make strawberry smoothies!

Valentine’s Day Dinner Ideas

• For older kids, encourage them to make dinner for Valentine’s Day. Tell them they have to pretend it is like at a fancy restaurant. You may be surprised at their creativity. Or if you are worried about the mess (or the edibility of food), make a quick dinner like mac and cheese with hotdogs. The hotdogs can be made into little hearts by slicing the hot dog into pieces and then cutting out a little ‘V’ on the top of each slice so it looks like a heart. (Can be done with strawberries too!)

Valentine’s Day Activities and Craft Ideas

• Share the love with someone special. Do you know someone in an elder home that could use some love? What about a local veteran? Encourage kids to make homemade Valentine’s day cards for them.
• Play a fun game and hide little paper hearts around the house. See how many they can find or who finds the most hearts first. Maybe some of the hearts have a coin taped on them or a special message written. Maybe it is a coupon for a special treat like ice cream or movie night.
• Make a Valentine’s Day Box. Here is one tutorial on how to make an R2D2 inspired box or a glitter one. But even taking an empty shoebox or packing box and giving kids scrap paper, wrapping paper, stickers, markers, and whatever you can find to have them make one of their own!

• Grab a simple craft from places like Michaels.com or (affiliate) Amazon.com. The kits come with everything you need so you don’t have to spend a lot of time finding items or setting things up.
• I also love these make-at-home stickers that you can place on fruit like apples, oranges, or pears. Sayings like, “Orange you glad you are mine” and “We make a perfect pair” are a great alternative to school card swaps and a unique way to make fruit a bit for fun to eat on Valentine’s Day (and perhaps all year round) for everyone in the family. Click HERE to download free printables of these!

What ideas or traditions do you have for Valentine’s Day?

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