What We Did on Valentine's Day...

Okay so of course I realize that this post is very belated.  I blame this on a bad case of the pre-vacation jitters.  All of the little cherubs can feel a vacation countdown in their bones.  Only 6.5 more hours until freedom (not that I'm counting or anything!).  Anyway, here are some of the fun things we did on Valentine's Day, in case you want to get a few ideas for next year :)

The Valentine Card making center was open for the week before and week of V-Day.  I was SO impressed by how much interest there was around writing!  Here are just a few of the materials available for little writers to use:

Paper phrases like "Be Mine,"  "Happy Valentine's Day" and "Hugs and Kisses," plus paper valentine decorations to fancy things up.  I ended up having to number each container because some of my little girls were slathering their cards with about 234354 decorations.

 

Paper hearts and strips of hearts using a heart hole punch

 Here are some of the cards in action.  Later I added large paper hearts for them to use as cards also.  There were also tons of sparkly stickers to jazz things up a little.

 This was a last minute and super easy gift for the little ones to give their parents.  They cut and glued a photo of themselves (well okay, we might have helped a little...) onto a foam heart that I grabbed on sale at Michael's.  They wrote their names and the year on the back, hole punched it and strung a ribbon through.  Voila!  A super fast and easy gift.

 Ms. C made these adorable "Love Bugs" with them.  I love how they all looked a little silly and different.  She used foam for the feet, a large pom pom, googly eyes and bits of pipe cleaner with a little glue.  Then they glued on a little Valentine's message from the writing center.  Ta Da!

Even though some of the card holder ideas I have seen on Pinterest are WAY cuter than these, sometimes I just love to let the kids go crazy decorating their own bags.  I had tons of stickers out, but they really seemed to like drawing the best.  After they were done, I recruited a few fourth graders to help me sort the cards into each child's bag.  BEST. IDEA. EVER.  It would have taken me a ridiculous amount of time without their help!

I hope your Valentine's was fabulous!  I was lucky enough to bribe my boyfriend into taking me out for burgers and to see The Vow last weekend.  I came home to two very pretty bouquets of flowers on Tuesday.  What a sweetie!