Seasons > Valentine’s Day Activities > Adapt a game for Valentine’s Day

Valentine Paper Plate Spinner

Cut out paper hearts and glue them to a paper plate. Write prizes and penalties onto the various hearts. Make a cardboard arrow and fasten it to the middle of the plate with a brad to form the spinner. Use this spinner as a simple game to win a prize, or use the spinner to determine a prize for other games on this page. (See ideas for prizes and penalties below.)

Valentine Hopscotch

Draw a traditional hopscotch layout, or draw hearts for Valentine’s day. Throw a small rock onto the first square (or heart) and hop on one foot in each square to the end and back, picking up the rock and jumping over that square on the way back. Ways to lose your turn: If the rock lands on a line or bounces out of the square, or if you hop on a line, or out of the square, or put 2 feet on the ground (except where there are 2 squares side-by-side). If you do it perfectly, move on to the next stage--throw the rock into the second square and hop up and back. The winner is the first person to throw their rock in all the spaces and jump to the end and back each time. For an inside version, use tape to mark the floor or spread out sheets of paper or towels on the carpet.

Valentine Tic-tac-toe (also called Draughts and Naughts or Three in a row)

Make a pink and red tic-tac-toe board and playing pieces out of paper or foam or something edible, such as cookies or candy. Both players can eat the pieces after playing several games. (or get a candy prize for the paper or foam version) If your child has already learned the trick of winning 3 in a row, then make the board 4 in a row!

Valentine Dartboard (for suction cup or velcro Nerf guns,)

Make a target that has various prizes as well as penalties. (see lists of ideas for both below.) For a suction cup gun, make the target out of paper and put it in a picture frame. If the target is for a velcro nerf gun, make the shapes out of felt. If you don’t have either of these, you can make a rubberband gun and shoot paper targets, such as empty paper cups.

view how to make a rubberband gun

Valentine checkers

Use your computer to make black squares, and print it onto red paper (8 rows of 8 squares). Use 2 colors of foil wrapped chocolates as playing pieces. You can simply play the game and the winner gets some kind of prize (see prize ideas below.) Or play to win chocolate playing pieces,  Or make it really interesting by writing prizes and penalties in the squares, and see if that changes how the game is played!! (See  prize and penalty ideas below, or “silly antics” from the love box page.) Traditionally, the game is played on the black squares, but if you don’t have a pen that writes on black, just write on the red squares.

How to play: Each player lines up 12 playing pieces on the 3 rows closest to him (black squares only.) Each player takes turns moving pieces diagonally, or jumping other pieces--if it’s your own piece nothing happens, but if it is an opponent’s piece, you get to keep it! If you make it to the opponent’s side, you are crowned king and can move backwards as wee as forwards. The game ends when the winner captures all the other person’s pieces, or no more legal moves can be made.

Valentine Cuponk

You don’t have to buy this game if you have a little imagination. Take turns throwing a ping-pong ball into a paper or plastic valentine cup. Make up trick shots, and see who can do it in the fewest number of tries (for small children, a large mixing bowl, or decorated cardboard box would be a better goal:

1. 1.bouncing it off the wall, then into the cup
   

2. 2.rolling it off of an open book
   

3. 3.drop it from standing on a chair
   

4. 4.roll it down the stairs and into a cup
   

5. 5.roll it out of a cup held on you head
   

6. 6.roll it through a paper towel tube
   

7. 7.hold it with you knees, and drop it into the cup
   

8. 8.hold it with your elbows and drop it into the cup
   

9. 9.kick it into a cup on it’s side
   

10. 10. another person rolls it on the floor and you drop the cup on it as it rolls by
    

11. 11. another person throws it from a cup and you catch it in another cup
    

12. 12. see how many times you can throw it out of the cup, and catch it again without dropping it
    

These are quick 5 or 10 minute games that you can play with your child. The rewards can be as simple as winning a chocolate kiss from the “kiss box” or as complicated as having a chart of favors for the winner to choose from.

Valentine card game (war, old maid, snap, etc.)

How to play “War”: Remove kings and jokers, and shuffle the remaining cards. Deal all the cards to 2 players. Each player takes turns turning over the top card in the stack. High card takes both cards (ignore suits). If the cards are the same number, play another card, and winner takes all. Set aside cards that are won each round. After all the cards have all been played, count up the won cards--the person with the most cards is the winner.  For a Valentine twist, any heart card wins both cards, and when the game is over, each heart card in the owner’s stack wins an extra chocolate kiss or favor

Valentine charades

Take turns acting out valentine activities or words without speaking or making sounds--nouns are much harder to act out than actions, and abstract nouns are nearly impossible!

Easy:

2 people kissing

2 people hugging

someone proposing

2 people holding hands, taking a walk

wedding processional

throwing the bouquet

feeding each other wedding cake

cupid shooting arrow

Moderate:

heart

cookie

card

chocolate

arrow

flowers

Impossible!

love

joy

Valentine Pictionary

Divide into at least 2 teams of 2 people each (you need minimum of 4 people to play, but many people can play this game.)  One person on each team takes a turn drawing a valentine picture (without writing words)  and the rest of the people on the team try to guess what the picture is before the other team guesses it. Nouns are the easiest to draw, and it is much harder to draw actions, and abstract nouns are nearly impossible! If you don’t have enough people to have a person decide the word to draw each round, before playing the game, write words on cards. During the game, the players that are going to draw the picture can and pick a word out of a box or bowl:

Easy:

heart

cookie

card

chocolate

arrow

flowers

key

Moderate:

2 people kissing

2 people hugging

someone proposing

2 people holding hands, taking a walk

wedding processional

throwing the bouquet

feeding each other wedding cake

cupid shooting arrow

Impossible!

love

joy

Prize Options

You can write these on strips of paper (or paper hearts!) and put them in a jar to randomly fish out each time a prize is won, in which case, you might want multiples of some of the them. Or write the prize options on a chart so all the options are seen to choose form. Or write them on post-it notes, and once a prize is chosen, take off that post-it-note so that prize is no longer available.

get a hug

get a kiss

get a ride on someone’s back

Get a chocolate kiss

Get a Jelly bean heart

Get a conversation heart

Get a chocolate chip

Get a white chocolate chip

Get a valentine cookie

Get a valentine cupcake

Get a story read to them

Stay up 15 minutes past bedtime

Play with parent for 15 min. or 30 min.

Get a back rub or foot massage

Penalty Options

These should be fun (or slightly annoying). If the penalties are too harsh, no one will want to play the game, and all the fun atmosphere will evaporate. It all depends on your children as to what they will consider a prize, or a penalty!

give back a chocolate kiss

get tickled

give a hug

give a kiss

sing a love song

learn a love song

make up a love-themed couplet or limerick

stand on your head and say, “I love you”

may not speak until someone in the room says the word__________(valentine, love, red, etc.)

watch Mom and Dad kiss

Valentine Hat

Make or buy a silly hat that is only used on Valentine’s Day (or the week before.) Everyone can decide on a word, or a group of words, that if someone says, that person must wear the silly hat until the next person is “caught” saying the word. You can make it harder by changing the word each day. It can be done  all day, or just at supper time.

Possible words:

valentine

heart

red

white

pink

chocolate

be mine

kiss

love

arrow

party

hat

marriage

wedding

How to get started:

Wear the hat yourself. Explain that whoever uses the chosen word will have to wear the hat, and that everyone can try to trick the others into saying the word. It can be hilarious as the hat gets traded around as various ones accidentally say the word. If it is slow to get started, you can “accidentally” say the word, but don’t make it too obvious!

How to Make a Giant Kiss hat:

Get a plastic bowl that is a good hat size, or bike helmet, and tape a plastic bag to the top. Then tape tinfoil to the inside of the bowl rim, then lift the foil up over the bowl and plastic bag to form the giant kiss hat. The top of the bag that sticks out can represent the kiss flag, or you can use ribbon if you want to get fancy.

Glue or tape hearts to a dress-up hat or dollar store hat for another option for a silly valentine hat.

Cupid Missed His Target Hat

This will probably appeal to boys. Take apart a coat hanger that has a cardboard tube. Cut the tube in half, and bend half of the wire to fit over the head. Make paper or foam point and feathers, and glue to the arrow shaft. Cover the shaft with colored paper, if you wish.

Seasons > Valentine’s Day Activities > Adapt a game for Valentine’s Day