Host a Kid's Valentines Party

Invite your kiddos' friends over for a sweet little Valentine's Day party. Play games, decorate cookies and more with my pre-planned party ideas. Keep reading to grab my FREE printable game and Party Planning Guide!

Valentines Parties in school were an abolute favorite of mine as a kid. I loved preparing my valentines for my classmates ahead of time. I loved the parties and walking around the room finding the little boxes with each friend's name on it and dropping in my valentine. All the treats and goodies and the overall festive feeling of the whole day was so much fun. Now that our son is three, he's old enough to enjoy making Valentines for his friends and doing all the party things. So, even though we homeschool, we decided to throw our own Valentine's day party instead and invite our friends from church and other homeschool friends.

I came up with four simple activities to do with our friends and to keep the kids busy. Preparing for this party has been so much fun we can't wait to have everyone over.

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Exchange Valentines

Is it even a kids' Valentines Party if you don't exchange valentines? I'm asking each guest to bring “x” number of valentines, the same number of "big" kids coming to the party including themselves. They could be homemade or store bought-we went with store bought as I found the most adorable truck themed valentines that came with a sticky gel window cling toy, which meant I didn't need to buy any treats or toys to add to the valentine, and I knew my son would just love the trucks more than making cards.

If the kids coming and moms all know each other, they could add names to the valentines if they want, or just write who it's from and leave names blank, let the moms decide. Optional to include a candy, toy or activity with the valentine-think stickers, pack of skittles etc.

Create Valentines Bags or Boxes

To go with the Valentine Exchange, I told the moms that I would have bags available for the kids to decorate with stamps, markers, crayons and stickers. I plan to put each child's name on a bag and when they come to the party we will decorate them together before we exchange the Valentines.

You can do this with bags or boxes. I contemplated saving tissue boxes to wrap in cute wrapping paper to make a type of mailbox for the kids, but I thought the bags would be a fun easy thing for them to decorate together. Once the bags are decorated help the kids go around the room and deposit one Valentine in each bag.

Decorate Cookies

Next up is decorate cookies! Grab your heart shaped cookie cutters and a no spread sugar cookie recipe and whip up a batch of sugar cookies for your little friends to decorate. To keep it simple I’m making all white buttercream frosting that we can dye pink and dark pink at the party, and I bought a multi pack valentine sprinkle shaker for the kids to share. A couple moms are into more natural things so the food coloring and we’ll be using is Watkins (no artificial dye ).

I picked up some cute paper plates and napkins, complete with some simple decor in this adorable set I saw on Amazon. Since the kids coming to our party are young I'm keeping it very simple with a juice box and cookies for a treat, maybe have some popcorn. Each child will have a paper plate with frosting and a plastic knife and then put colored icing into piping bags to share. Each chiild gets to decorate two cookies; one to enjoy at the party and one to take home in a little treat bag.

Read a Book

While the kids work on decorating, pull out a cute book about love or Valentine's Day and read it to them. I'm choosing Little Blue Truck's Valentine and God Gave Us Love so that we can remind the kid's of Jesus' love and what He did for us, and why we celebrate love on this special day.

For more book ideas here are a few we have:

Once the kids are done decorating, it's time to burn off that sugar and play some games!

Play Simple Games

Grab some balloons and my FREE printable “X & O Tic Tack Toe" for some fun simple games to play together. Ever notice how just having some balloons on the floor at a party, instantly gives kids something fun to play with? My personal favorite balloon game growing up was "Don't Touch the Ground" a simple game where you take turns hitting the balloon wihtout lettng it touch the ground. It's fun to count and see how many hits you can get before starting over. Another simple fun balloon game is balloon races. Breaking up into two teams, the children need to keep the balloon between their legs without letting it drop, and run or hop to the other end of the room, around a chair, and back.

After all that exciting balloon fun, you can wrangle everyone in with my X & O Tic Tack Toe. Print out my attached printable and use different colored Hershey Kisses as playing pieces, or use the cutouts provided.

FREE Party Planning Checklist

Ready to have your own party? Include the other mom's and ask if they want to be a part and include them in the party planning! You don't have to be "super mom" and do everything yourself-we aren't meant to do it all, plus how fun is it to include others? Don't make it an expectation, just an open invitation. Do you have a freind who's great at decorating? Maybe she wants to host it at her house? Have another friend who loves to bake? She could make the snacks and cookies. What about the mom who loves playing games? Include her in reading the book and leading the games.

Have fun and grab my FREE Party Planning Checklist below to help get you started! And don't forget to subscribe to my email list so you don't miss any future posts!

Links

Product links in this post are affiliate links. If you choose to use them I may make commission off of purchases, thanks for supporting our family if you do.

Truck themed valentines

Handled paper bags

Valentine's stamps

Heart foam stickers.

Paper plates, napkins and decor set

Plastic knives

Piping bags

Treat bags

Heart shaped cookie cutters

Wilton's no spread sugar cookie recipe

Sugar & Sparrow's - Buttercream frosting recipe

Multi pack valentine sprinkle shaker