Happy Valentine’s Day! Whether you love love or just love day after candy sales, I like to think Valentine’s Day has something for everyone. And when you have kids, holidays are always a good excuse to spend quality time together.
I love a good holiday-themed activity, but I’m not super creative and I tend to do things at the last minute. If that resonates with you and you’re looking for something to do with the kids today, here are four simple things you can do either with stuff around the house or with a quick trip to the store!
Kitchen/Cooking Activities
Heart-Shaped Cake
- Your favorite cake mix (or from scratch!); I used strawberry
- Can of icing (again or scratch); I chose cream cheese
- Whatever toppings you want! We used heart-shaped sugar hearts
- Heart-shaped pan or cut the cake in the shape of a heart or skip that and just make a cake!
Voilà, dessert is ready.
Cookie Decorating
This one is pretty self explanatory, but I want to encourage you to make it as easy as possible on yourself. For example, I bought a decorating kit at Target that had pre-made cookies. But for Christmas cookie decorating this past year, I used a pack of break and bake sugar cookies and let my three-year-old go to town with the icing and sprinkles. He really did not care that I didn’t roll out perfectly flat Christmas cookies or cut any shapes. He just cared about how much icing he could squeeze onto a single cookie before eating it. (Similar cookie kit here.)
Craft Activities
Ok, these I did not come up with, but I thought they were so cute and incorporated a lot of skills while being fun!
Paper Bag Puffy Hearts
- Uses cutting, painting, and sewing! Click here for directions.
Valentines Frozen Hands Ice Melt
- A fun, sensory science activity! Click here for directions.
