Valentine's Day is February 14th. If you are one of the many moms across St. Louis who signed up to help with your child's class party, you may be starting to think, "what have I gotten myself into?" Coming up with Valentine's Day decorations, snacks and games can be a bit overwhelming, especially as the day draws nearer.
One easy game that you can play at school class parties will require a little bit of your time, but won't cost you anything. Since almost every St. Louis school requires children to bring in their own Valentine's Day cards for classmates, you can use this to your advantage and make a game out of the valentine exchange.
To prepare, head out to any St. Louis Target, Walgreens or Walmart store with either a notepad or your cell phone's camera. Find the aisle where children's valentines are sold and either make note or take photos of the pictures on the back of the boxes where the valentines enclosed are shown. Then, prior to your party, make a list of pictures, characters or words that you saw on various valentines.
For example, your list may include characters such as Tinkerbell, Hello Kitty, Cinderella, Dora, Lightning McQueen, Buzz Lightyear, Anakin Skywalker, Harry Potter or Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks. Also include a list of common words found on valentines such as friend, pal, buddy, special, sweet, awesome, mine, cute, cool or love. Your pictures list might include those small items that make up the valentine image such as hearts, flowers, stars, trophies, cars, balloons, rockets, cats, puppies or paw prints.
Once you have a thorough list, you might want to type or write them, then cut the words out individually for easier game play on the day of the party. At the party, after everyone has exchanged valentines, ask the students to count out ten valentines and lay them face up on their desks.
Then, proceed to draw one slip of paper containing one of your list words from a basket. Each time you read aloud an item to be found on valentines, such as Cinderella, a puppy, a yellow star and so forth, students should look over the ten valentines they have chosen to see if they can find a match. Repeat this process until one student has five matches and deem that student the winner of the game.
To make the game easier, you may choose to allow students to use the same valentine for different words from your list. To make it more difficult, you may require students to flip over the valentine once they've used it and only use the remaining valentines for future words.
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