Need some quick, fun and easy Valentine’s Day classroom party ideas or a Valentine’s Day party with friends? We’ve done our fair share of Valentine’s Day classroom parties and friend parties and know how much work it can be to entertain lots of little kids. We’ve rounded up 15 of our favorite Valentine’s Day party games and kids activities to help you plan a fun and easy party for kids of all ages.
Before we get started, we’ve got ideas for DIY valentines. Valentine’s Day is such a fun celebration for kids, especially the annual classroom party! Help your child tell friends how much they care with a unique Valentine’s Day card that represents your child. Let them find small toys/items around the home and create their own pun-ny Valentine’s or use one of our simple, DIY printable Valentine’s Day cards located in our Etsy shop. The best part is they can be printed from home! Our kids love making their own Valentines to hand out to friends and classmates. If you’re looking for unique and adorable printable Valentines, then definitely check out our Etsy shop.
For more Valentine’s Day printables, crafts, and activities – check out all the fun projects we’ve done in the past. Be sure to look around the blog for more fun Valentine’s Day ideas.
Now on to our favorite games and activities for your next Valentine’s Day class party or Valentine’s Day party with friends:
If there is one game you add to your Valentine’s Day classroom party, this is it! It’s so easy to set up, play and kids of ALL AGES love it! If you’ve played “Don’t Eat Pete” this is the Valentine edition called Don’t Eat Cupid. We add this game to almost every party we do because it’s such a hit with the guests (adults even get in on it too!)
To play this easy Valentine’s Day game, place a piece of candy or small toy/prize on each of the spaces on the board. First player leaves the room while all the other players choose a character to be cupid. First player comes back in the room and begins grabbing the candy/prizes, one at a time. The goal is to get as many pieces of candy/prizes as possible before you accidentally pick the cupid. Once the player picks the chosen space with the candy/prize on it, everyone yells “Don’t Eat Cupid!” and that player’s turn is over. They get to keep all of the candy/prizes that they picked, but leave the other ones on the board. Refill the board with more candy/prizes and repeat with another player (and choose another character to be cupid), until all players have had a turn.
Ideas for candy and non-candy items to play Don’t Eat Cupid: Valentine M&Ms, skittles, Valentine’s Day conversation candy hearts, stickers, erasers, small party favors from the Dollar store (they have a ton of Valentine’s Day party favors that make this game super affordable and fun).
I mean, when it comes to classroom parties, Bingo is a classic. BINGO is always a fun and easy game that everyone knows how to play, so of course we had to include a Valentine’s Day BINGO. Print the Valentine’s Day BINGO game and give each kid a small pack of M&Ms, skittles, or Valentine candy hearts as game pieces.
Up next we’ve got a fun game to get the kids wiggles out from eating all that sugar! Combine music and movement with this fun and easy Valentine’s Day game. Download the free printable instructions for this Valentine’s Day game below. To prep – cut out a bunch of colored hearts and write different commands on the back of each one. Put each paper heart in a circle on the floor and have the kids walk around the circle while you play music. When the music stops each child needs to be standing on a heart. The kids turn over the heart they’re standing on and have to do the command. Keep playing until the time is up or the kids have had enough. This is a fun and silly Valentine’s Day game the kids will love and it will help them get out some energy.
Roll a Dice is the perfect game for learning nad fun! This is a simple game that kids can play all by themselves or with as many players as you’d like. There’s very little preparation involved. Just print a Valentine’s Roll-A-Dice card for each player, get a bag of candy or small colored game pieces and some dice, and you’re ready to play. This is an easy game for class parties, for older and younger kids, and combines a little bit of learning with a whole lot of fun.
Another classic classroom party game is Pin the Tail on the Donkey…but we put a Valentine’s Day twist on it. Pin the Arrow on Cupid’s Bow is a great game for kids of all ages and a easy activity for a Valentine’s Day classroom party because it requires very little set up and prep.
I find that this cookie decorating station runs smoothly when I prep all the supplies beforehand and already have things separated to hand out as “cookie kits” for each kid. Pick up unfrosted sugar cookies from your local grocery store bakery for the kids to decorate. To put the cookie kits together:
You can easily find the small plastic 2 ounce containers on Amazon, at the grocery store, Walmart, Target, and even the dollar store. They’re perfect for storing small items that you can just hand out to the kids.
When doing a rotation of stations for younger kids, I love one that combines a good picture book + a healthier treat. Everyday Reading has a great Valentine’s Day book list. Combine it with these cutie mandarin orange treats and tags for an easy Valentine’s Day activity and healthy Valentine’s Day treat.
Dump a bag of conversation hearts in a bowl and put them in the middle of the kids. Give the kids 2 minutes to see who can build the tallest stack. Whoever builds the tallest stack wins. Or you can split the kids in teams and as a team they have to build 5 stacks of 5 (or whatever goal is appropriate for the age). For older kids you could make it harder and tell them they can’t use their hands to stack the hearts – instead give them chopsticks or two popsicle sticks to pick up the candy hearts. Or instead of stacking the hearts on the table they have to put a popsicle stick in their mouth and stack the hearts on the popsicle stick while balancing the stick in their mouth. There are a lot of fun variations of this game!
You only need two items to prep this easy Valentine’s Day game: 12 cups and a bowl of conversation heart candies. To play, split the kids in two teams and set up 6 cups per team. Have the teams line up and give them a bowl of conversation hearts. The kids take turns trying to toss conversation hearts into the cups. Have them each toss one heart, go to the back of the line, and the next one tries, etc until one team can get a candy in each cup. The first team to get at least one candy in each cup wins!
Lately I’ve noticed the tradition of bringing in a homemade Valentine’s Day box is less and less common. So sad; but if the kids aren’t going to bring Valentine Boxes from home, I love having a station where the kids decorate a bag or box at school so they can hold all their class valentines. Gather enough paper bags (we love these kraft bags) or boxes for each child. Give them stickers (these Valentine face stickers are awesome), markers, crayons, and other art supplies so they can decorate their own Valentine’s Day box or Valentine’s Day bag. Our kids are currently obsessed with these dot markers and these paint sticks. Paint sticks make coloring so much fun with all the vibrant paint colors, plus they dry really fast!
Any easy Valentine’s Day craft! Paper weaving is not only fun for little hands but also great for hand eye coordination, concentration, pattern recognition and more. Download the free printable Valentine heart below for an easy paper weaving kids activity. This is an easy Valentine’s Day craft because the supplies are cheap and minimal – our free printable heart, strips of colored paper, and scissors. For younger kids you’ll want to prep the heart by pre-cutting along the dotted lines so they can easily weave the paper heart.
If you only have time for one activity, a playdough mat station is our go to. Playdough is a fun and easy activity for any classroom party including the older aged ones! The older the kids, the more elaborate the creations! We love playdough mats because it helps kids get a little more creative and is a great guided play activity. Print off our Valentine playdough mats and laminate them for quick and easy station. We like to have a few different Valentine playdough mats for kids to choose from. If kids get done with one playdough mat before the time is up, they can choose another Valentine playdough mat to design.
Our kids are obsessed with slime, so of course we had to include Valentine’s Day slime making as a favorite party activity. Take your slime to the next level by adding fun Valentine’s Day slime labels. We like to buy little containers at the Dollar store (they come in a pack of 10) or use little 2 ounce plastic condiment cups for our homemade slime creations. You can find plastic cups with lids at the grocery store, Walmart, Target, Amazon, etc. Make your slime fun and festive with Valentine’s Day glitter and mix-ins and then download our printable Valentine’s Day slime labels to finish them off.
Ok, this is also another must crowd favorite! All the kids get involved and you can make it easier or harder depending on the age. To prep this game, write a bunch of Valentine’s Day themed words and phrases for the kids to act out. For smaller kids who can’t read, print off pictures from the internet. Split them up in teams and give them 1 minute to guess as many as they can and then switch to the next team. Play as many rounds as you’d like or until the first team gets 20 right. Or play as one big group and whoever guesses correctly is the next one to act out the word.
Another classic kids game, but Valentine’s Day edition. Find the printable Valentine’s Day Cake Walk game in our etsy shop. We like to play with cupcakes or cookies instead of cake. To play, put all the Valentine pictures on the floor in a circle and play music. Kids walk around stepping on each one. When the music stops you call out a character and whoever is standing on that character wins a prize/cupcake/treat.
We normally plan 4-5 stations for the kids to rotate around and to keep the party moving. We found that it’s best to play the games and do the activities in smaller groups, especially with younger kids.
For even more Valentine’s Day kids activities and ideas, find them under our Valentine’s Day tab.
Happy Valentine’s Day friends!
Much love,
Stacey + Niki
Aloha Friends! We hope to inspire you to create magical memories with your ohana through play, learning, and celebrating. We offer ideas that make celebrating and playing fun and easy, so that you want to do it more often! We love sharing our creativity and talents with you, and hope you find some content on our page that inspires you to create a beautiful life with your ohana.
