I was asked by my best friend to "host" her classroom Valentine's Party this year. I have no clue what to do. I would like to keep the class as a whole. One project is I am going to bake cookies and let them frost their own cookie and decortate it. I have been searching the internet for hours and have come up with a few games but not having any children, I really have no idea if they are age appropriate. Please let me know if you have any "game" ideas. I have already got the "gift bags" finished. Also, when playing BINGo and a child wins, is it OK to give that child a prize (like a Valentine pencil or sucker) and leave the rest of the children out? They are all going to get a pencil in their goodie bag? Thanks for any suggestions!!

I helped host a v-day party for my dd's class last year. The way they played BINGO is, they would play until everyone "won". All the kids would continue to mark their cards but once they got a prize they couldn't collect again. This way everyone had fun and won a prize.

We also made "mail boxes" for their Valentines to go in. The teacher asked all the parents to send in an empty Kleenex box and we covered them with red,pink and white wrapping paper. I helped cut the opening for the kids and took in tons of stickers for them to decorate with. The teacher gave them each a big , white sticker to write their names on so they could tell which box was theirs. They all had a great time decorating their own "mail box" and it made it easier to carry home all the Valentines they recieved.
HTH

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Hello!! I'm a room mother for my little girl's first grade class. Her Christmas party was about 1-1/2 hours long. We played Bingo and pin the tale on Rudolph. The kids were so excited and hyper that, that was all we had time to do with them. We played Bingo about 10 times to give a fair number of kids to win. Each child got a chance to plan pin the tail on Rudolph and the 5 closest to the target got a prize. Each child was given a goodie bag before they left. We had 15 minutes left before the party was over and I just handed out color sheets to the kids. That age group loves to color and that calmed them down enough till the bell rang. Are they passing out Valentine's during the party? That might be another activity that could be done during the party. Are they having any food to eat other than cookies? I passed out the color sheets at the same time they were eating their party food. That way they ate and colored at the same time. Anything to keep them busy at all times, cause when they get bored that's when they tend to get alittle out of hand. I hope I was able to help. Good luck. Let me know if you find another game idea. I'm trying to find ideas, as well, for my little girl's class party. So far, I'm just doing Bingo, coloring contest, party food time and exchanging Valentine's.

As a former second grade teacher, whenever I had parties, I liked to have stations so the kids could do activities in small groups. For example, I might have a station with a Valentine craft, another station where the kids could make a Valentine card for someone special, and another station where they would decorate the cookie and then pass out their Valentines. The kids would rotate when you play music or ring a bell. Oriental Trading Company has inexpensive craft activities. You can do a whole group activity like reading a Valentine story or playing the Bingo game and then break up into stations. Near the end of the party, you can serve refreshments and the kids can open their Valentines.

If you're making your Bingo game, you could always rename the game to fit the holiday theme - use HEART, SWEET, CANDY, or something along that lines....

cj/

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I think the stations txwordgirl suggested are the best idea, so everyone gets a chance to do something. One for pin the wing on cupid or something silly like that, one for decorating cookies, one for making the parents a card, one for Bingo. 5 kids at each station, and rotate. Makes it a lot easier.

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This is a great idea!! I think I may do this for my little girl's first grade party. Thanks for the suggestion!! Have a great day!!

Exactly what I'd suggest... stations. Divide the class into groups with 4 (or 5) in each.

I have always thought that this website has excellent teacher-tested ideas and LOTS of craft suggestions:
The ChildFun Family Website - Content

Our second grade teachers sent a letter home telling us that we should come in on the 13th after school and decorate our child's desk. They only do this in the second grade and it is really fun. I did it for my DD and she loved it. This year I get to do it for my DS and it will be blast. We leave the extra decorations for the teacher just in case a parent couldn't make it to decorate their child's desk. When they come in on V-Day, they have a desk with candy, hearts, little presents, whatever the parent chooses (excluding balloons and flowers).

My DS's teacher always has stations of crafts and decorating cookies, etc. The teacher will then read a story to the kids and then they exchange their cards/snacks as a whole.

When my daughter was in 3rd grade, they took those little valentine hearts with the sayings on them and gave each kid a bowl of them. They then had a race where they took them out of the bowl one at a time with chopsticks then put them back in one at a time with the chopsticks. The kids went crazy and loved it - of course a little Asian boy won because he uses chopsticks every day, but the kids didn't care. They thought it was fun - we then gave them a baggie and they got to keep their bowl of candy and their chopsticks.

Lisa

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Last year I made "word search" puzzles for my daughter's first grade class -- and the words hidden in the puzzle were their names (teachers' names too). They LOVED it -- they were way more excited than I ever imagined they would be. They were each so thrilled to find their own name! So if you need a quiet, calming sort of activity you might want to try this. Good luck, have fun!

When I do the room mom thing, I always do groups......it's easier to keep everyone involved this way. We have decorated desks, mailboxes, played bingo and bobbed for hearts (instead of apples) and they always have fun.....When I do DS special ed class which is much much smaller we actually bake cookies together, and they have so much fun doing it.......one year I did mini bubbles for everyone....I have never heard a classroom so quiet, everybody was busy blowing....LOL!

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When I was room mom for my 2 ds, we did the stations. Before deciding on how many stations, find out how many adults will be there to help. You don't want to have 5 stations, but only 3 adults. Confirm with the helpers the night before the party also. One year I had 6 stations set up, but 2 parents couldn't make it. They had a sick child at home. If I had confirmed the night before, it would have been less of a headache to re-arrange the stations the next day.
Have fun with the kids. It will be something they will remember for a long time.
Judy

I did my 3rd graders party last year and we played HEART instead of bingo. I printed the cards off of the internet(dltk kids or something like that) and used the conversation candy hearts for the markers. (they make very large conversation hearts and that's what I used) We also did a game similar to what lisacb mentioned except we did it in groups of 3 or 4. We set a 2 minute timer, had the group set at a table and put a bowl of candy hearts in the middle. Each child had what looked like a chinese take out box and used chopsticks to move the candy from the big bowl into their own box. We counted the total for their group and then let the next group do the same thing. The group with the most candy won prizes. With the HEART(bingo), we played until several kids won also. We had the kids decorate mail boxes to put their valentines in and had a couple of other teachers judge them and had prizes for the best 2. We had them make the boxes at home and bring them in on Valentine's Day. I normally have enough prizes so that everyone wins something. Some don't do that and I guess either way is OK though some kids, especially younger ones get a little upset if they don't win something.
Have fun!

My ds is in 4th grade, so we plan on having a mini-sock hop this year. Last year we played this game with the class. Cut (large) hearts out of construction paper, then cut each heart in half using different scrapbooking scizzors (or just cut them in different ways.) Then each child gets one half and has to find the other half of his/her heart. We had enough prizes for everyone.

sounds like fun! Our school doesn't do parties anymore

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I love this idea!! thanks

that sounds great

You all have great ideas. This is what is going on! There will be a total of 4 adults (the teacher can just sit back and enjoy) -

groups are the way its going. One, decorating their cookies
Two, the cut out hearts game I like a lot. Found another game online that you give every child a piece of liccorice (my spelling is bad) and once its in their mouth, they can't use their hands. First one done, wins.

Thrird, I love the chop sticks idea with the hearts. And being pregnant, I have become very very good friends with the local chinese retaurant. I'm sure I can get the chop sticks and boxes from them for a small fee.

Fourth, I am pretty good at face painting. I think that while I am doing that I am also going to have the scrabble game with everyones name in it. Thanks to all of you! Great ideas. Too bad the party is only for 45 minutes!!

God Bless

As a mom of a second grader and a pre-k 4, I would highly suggest, as others have already done, dividing the children up into smaller groups so they can rotate from activity to activity. Have at least one adult at each activity to assist or lead them. This is so much easier than trying to get everyone attention at once. This is always how the parties have gone at my kids' schools and it's almost always worked very well.

A few more things -- check with the teacher to see if any of the children have food allergies. DS#2's pre-k class somehow got all the allergic kids this year (milk, eggs, peanuts, shellfish, red food dye, blue food dye & one other I can't remember right now, plus bee stings), so we try not to have much food at parties because of that. We have a list of foods that are safe for all the children (fresh fruit, Skittles, Starbursts and a few other things) so we stick to that list. Also, for face painting, you may need parent permission slips. At my 2nd grader's school they require it -- no signed form, no face painted.

Good luck!
Sarah.........mom to Jason & Devin

I'm room mom for my Kindergartener and we're going to split them in small groups. We're doing 1 craft and two games. We're playing bingo and making up our own cards. On the cards are their word wall words. The winner will get a gift but at the end the losers will too. Doing the same thing with prizes with our candy heart game. I really liked the chop stix idea, but thought stacking the hearts would be easier at this age. So I bought the bigger bags of candy hearts & am going to let them stack them for a certain amount of time to see who can build the largest tower.

Ennadee --- like the word search idea. Might save that one for next year.

A lot of good ideas here, but the time really does go so fast that you can't do a lot.

Have fun!!!

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