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Valentine's Day Traditions and Activities |
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Family Valentine Box
Grab an old shoe box from the closet and decorate it with tissue
paper, stickers, and cut out hearts. Using markers or paints add
your family name to the outside. Set the box in a central place,
two weeks prior to Valentine's Day and let family members drop
each other valentine messages. Another twist is to draw names
and secretly leave messages for that one person, trying to guess
who has who at the end. |
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Valentine's Day Breakfast
Celebrate Valentine's Day as a family by making heart shaped
waffles, french toast, or pancakes using either a
heart shaped waffle iron,
cookie cutters, or
pancake molds. If
breakfast doesn't work for your family, try doing the same thing
with sandwiches at lunch. Also remember, if Valentine's Day
falls on a day that isn't good for your family (i.e a work or
school day), then choose a day closest to Valentine's Day and
celebrate then. If you are inclined, you can have simple
inexpensive gifts sitting at each persons plate or better yet,
place them in a large white valentine box in the center of the
table with strings or ribbons attached. Have a string lead to
everyone's plate and after breakfast or lunch is over let each
family member pull out their gift. Remember try and keep the
gifts simple and inexpensive, so that you don't get stressed out
over trying to find time to buy and wrap the gifts. The dollar
store is often a good place to find simple inexpensive gifts. |
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Make Heart Shaped Sugar Cookies
Valentine's Day is a
great excuse to spend time making cookies together as a family.
Sugar cookies are great tasting
and easy to make for little ones. To avoid arguments while
making the cookies, try measuring out the ingredients ahead of
time and letting the kids take turns pouring the ingredients
into the mixing bowl. Let the kids roll the dough out and use
heart shaped
cookie cutters to make the
cookies. |
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Crazy Maze
Take the kids on a trip throughout the house by leaving a trail
of hearts from their bedrooms to a special surprise waiting at
the end. Curve the trail in and out of rooms, around chairs, and
under tables to make the most out of the adventure. If you have
more than one child, be sure to use different colored hearts, so
that there isn't any confusion. |
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Celebrate the Old Fashioned Way
Make old fashioned valentines and secretly exchange them with
each other. To make old fashioned valentines all you need is red
and pink construction paper, white paper doilies, scissors,
glue, and a marker. Cut out a large heart from the red or pink
construction paper and then a smaller heart from the doily. Glue
the white doily heart to the red or pink heart and write a
secret love message. You can find everything you need at
your local craft store or buy them online at
Hearthsong.com. To make it extra fun, hide them for your
secret valentine to find. |
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Spread Valentine's Day Cheer
Make valentines and treats for seriously ill children at your
local hospital or for a local homeless shelter in your area.
Deliver the valentines as a family. |
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Magical Messages
Leave secret love messages around the house for each other.
Write or leave messages on
mirrors, in notebooks, on car
doors (dirty cars make a great place to write!), in the
refrigerator, or anywhere else they are sure to be seen. |
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Valentine Day Treasure Hunt
Using heart shaped containers, take your kids on a
treasure hunt throughout the
house with the final reward being a special Valentine’s Day
treat. You can buy the candy heart containers at your local
dollar store or on-line at
Oriental Trading. If your
kids are too small for a treasure hunt, try just filling the
hearts with small prizes or candy and hiding them throughout the
house. |
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Send a Secret Message
Send your kids a secret message with this magical message trick:
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Using the juice from a fresh lemon and a small fine tip paint
brush, write a secret message of love on plain white paper to
your child. Once completely dried, fold the letter and seal it
in an envelope for your Valentine telling them to “bake” their
letter at 325 degrees for 3-5 minutes to read the message! Be
sure to watch the paper the entire time and use a pot holder
or metal tongs to handle
How does this work? The heat of the oven burns the lemon juice
making it reappear on the paper.
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