DIY Classroom Valentines - no candy!

As I recovered from a nearly FOUR week winter break, I could feel it looming. The next holiday… Valentine’s Day.

I don’t have a problem with Valentine’s Day per se, but it isn’t one we really celebrate. My husband and I make a big deal for our anniversary, not this.

Do you guys make your valentines or add to cart and be done with it? I’ve done both and while I personally don’t love spending too much time on the minor holidays, my kids seem to love it. I DO want my kids to feel proud of what they’re giving to their friends, and have a little bit of a say in it now that their older, but I don’t want to be on the hook for a big time commitment or a big price tag.

To be honest, the only reason I put even this much effort into classroom Valentines was because I had been toying with the idea of offering it as a surprise for my Photo Club Members. But I will say, my kids LOVED them. So, maybe putting a little extra effort in was worth it. :)

I’m sharing my two ideas for semi-independent, inexpensive classroom Valentines with you. When I was thinking these up, I didn’t want anything remotely romantic and kept them gender neutral. I know my kids, and they would have spent wayyy too long deciding WHICH saying goes to which classmate.

OPTION 1: Mini Watercolors

I’ve got an artist at home (a girl after my own heart!) and so I thought she would love handing out these little watercolor paint sets you can get on Amazon. I came up with two cutesy phrases: “I think you are a work of ART” and “You add COLOR to our class!” and printed these babies out on cardstock with the intention of letting her paint them. I was putting together a few for this post though and I wouldn’t recommend doing anything more than splattering a little paint on them. The paper gets too wet and the ink will start to run/blend into the paper. I ended up splattering the sample ones with some fun neon watercolors we have.

I cut them out and cut off two corners to look like a tag, punched a hole and tied to the paint with yarn. Done!

You could also opt give out crayons or fun multi-colored pens too if you wanted to switch it up!

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OPTION 2: Glow Sticks

We binge watched all of Star Wars recently with my oldest so he’s kind of in that mindset right now. I went with glow sticks for him partly because of that, and partly because they are cheap, and my little ones go nuts over a fun glow-bath so I don’t mind having the extras around.

This one might be simpler than the first! I came up with two cutesy phrases again, “You make our class GLOW” and “You LIGHT up the class” and printed them out on colored cardstock this time because I felt like they needed some color but I wasn’t confident in the amount of color ink I had in my printer. Punch two holes this time and slide the glow stick through.

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I intentionally wanted these to be easy enough for my 5 and 8 year old to be able to do without needing TONS of supervision or help, I have another rugrat to chase around after all! And while they aren’t “pinterest perfect”, they are a great balance of a hands-on activity and low-mess, low-stress which is a home run in my book!

So what do you think? Are these doable? Which one would your kiddo like most?