Celebrate heart day with your kids this year with one (or more!) of these FUN and EASY Valentine’s Day activities! There’s no better way to show your children how much you love them than by spending quality time together. Whatever age your little ones are, I’ve got a variety of ways that you can enjoy Valentine’s Day together that they are sure to love.
Valentine’s Day Activities for Kids
Valentine Read-In
Make reading time more fun by having a Valentine’s Read-In! Grab some books with a Valentine’s or love theme. Then make a fort, turn off the lights, and read together with flashlights!
Make it cozy with pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals. Play classical music quietly in the background during a family “read-in” to help set the mood. You’ll be surprised at how long your little ones will enjoy reading time with these little touches that make it extra special.
I like to alternate between reading books aloud to my kids and giving them time to “read” on their own. You can grab love-themed books from your bookshelves or the library or buy new ones to add to your book collection. Here are some of our favorite Valentine-themed picture books:
- Valentine’s Day is Cool by James and Kimberly Dean
- Ollie’s Valentine Olivier Dunrea
- Mirabel’s Missing Valentines by Janet Lawler
- Love from the Crayons by Drew Daywalt
- The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond
- Hugs and Kisses for the Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle
- Valentine’s Day Jokes for Kids by Chrissy Voeg
- Love Monster and the Last Chocolate by Rachel Bright
- L is for Love: A Heartfelt Alphabet by Greg Paprocki
Heart-a-Stack Challenge
This game-based challenge is fun for the whole family! You need some heart candies and popsicle sticks; you place a popsicle stick in your mouth and slowly add heart candies to the stick. See who can stack the most hearts before they fall!
When finished, don’t forget to enjoy a heart candy or two (or three)! 😉
Valentine Card Station
Another great Valentine’s Day activity is to set up a Valentine’s card station for your kids to make special Valentines for family and friends.
Depending on your child’s age and readiness, they can draw pictures of why they love someone and activities they like to do together. Or you can give sentence stems to guide them: “I love Granny because ______________.”
You can easily grab items from your current craft stash and supplement them with festive items from your local dollar store! Materials for your card station:
- Construction and notebook paper
- Scissors and glue
- Pencils, crayons, and markers
- Stickers, ribbon, and other pretty accents
- Stencils
- Envelopes
- A list of friend and family names and common words like “Dear,” “To,” and “From” to help with spelling.
If a friend or family member lives far away, it’s the perfect opportunity to teach how to mail a letter. Or hand-deliver them and see the smiles on their faces!
Valentine Dance Party
Play a song list of love-themed songs and dance around! Here are some great options to add to your playlist that your kids will love!
- L-O-V-E: Nat King Cole
- Kiss the Girl: The Little Mermaid
- You’ve Got a Friend In Me: Randy Newman
- Don’t Go Breaking My Heart: Elton John
- You’re My Best Friend: Queen
- All You Need is Love: The Beatles
- Ain’t No Mountain High Enough: Marvin Gaye
- I Love You Baby: Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
You will have so much fun together, and you can also check off your workout for the day!
Build a Heart
Grab some red Solo cups and place them in a heart formation. Begin stacking cups on top and see how tall your “heart” can get before falling! We also like to use popsicle sticks to stack with cups to provide more support.
It’s incredible how simply giving them new material can entertain your little ones. After building his heart, my son played with the cups and sticks for another hour!
Sensory Tub: Heart Hunting
You can make a Valentine-themed sensory tub with simple materials for your kids to explore! Here’s what we used in ours:
- Red beans
- White rice
- Mini marshmallows
- Heart candies or other small heart-shaped items
Use child-safe kitchen utensils like spoons, ice cream scooper, and tongs to hunt for the heart candies. We love this kid-friendly set of tools you can grab for under $10!
With my five-year-old, I mixed 20 heart candies in the tub and challenged him to find them all. I gave the rule that he had to use the tools for hunting; he couldn’t use his hands. You can adjust this for your child’s age and interest. Digging in with your hands is super fun too!
Valentine Snack Board & Movie
I love those pretty, themed snack boards that seem so popular now. But you know what I like even better? Letting my kids be involved in helping to make the snack board!
It may not always look perfect, but he has fun making it, which matters most! Here are some ideas for things to include on a kid-friendly Valentine’s snack board:
- Marshmallow and strawberry kabobs (assembling these is fine motor practice too!)
- White chocolate-dipped pretzels
- Cinnamon popcorn
- Heart-shaped cheese and sausage (use a heart-shaped cookie cutter)
- Red peppers and ranch dip
- Any Valentine’s treats or candies
Use a heart-shaped dish or a wooden board, or fill a cupcake pan with the treats. Let your little ones have fun and be creative in how they build the snack board.
Enjoy your snack board with a fun movie like:
- Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown
- The Lady and the Tramp
- Cinderella
- The Princess Bride
- Beauty and the Beast
I’m so excited to do all these Valentine’s Day activities with my kids and see which ones they love the most! Which activities will you try?
