Need 1st grade Valentines Party ideas!

[mellyc]

Help! I am in charge of my daughter's Valentines Party for her first grade class and this is the first time I've had a child in school so it is completely new to me. Her teacher is brand new too, so we could really use any ideas. Please share what your children have done in the past (especially 1st grade).

Thanks so much!!

[engravingmom]

I have been in dd's kindergarten class a lot this year and I decided less is more. Here are a few easy things from the last party I went to.
pin the nose on Rudolph
colored a picture and cut it into a puzzle they could take home
frosted cupcakes

other things you could do:
color by number
watercolor
shrinky dinks
musical chairs with a valentine twist
do you love your neighbor
valentine word search/cross word puzzle
mouse or roses out of Hershey's kisses

I like to go to www.dltk-kids.com for easy ideas.

Good Luck!

[Sewing-Queen]

I have noticed with younger grades it works better to rotate station b/c they don't have long attentions spans. We usually do 3-4 station at each party.

Here are things I have done:

Valentine's cards: use carrots and potatoes to make heart shape stamps to stamp paint on the card.

Use punches to make different size hearts. Use them to make a card by creating butterflies, caterpillars etc with just heart shapes. Write something like we "I'm buggy for you"

Bean bag toss

musical chairs

Make an arrow out of tp tube and foam board (for the tip) and throw then at a 10# can

Use red tissue paper to cover a drawing of a heart. tear the tissue into pieces and use the end of a pencil to dap them into place.

Family fun usually has great ideas too.

[happydaisy100]

I wanted to bring this dicussion back up for any more ideas out there?!!

I talked to someone who said Bingo is fun--You could play in the small groups for a rotation or even with the whole class together.

One year my sons class did crayon shavings onto wax paper, folded it over and ironed it (so the crayon melted) and cut out a heart. I'm not sure if these are the exact diretions, but it was cute.

[yobo]

I've done lots of parties and I just got so tired of Bingo!!! We're doing an "escape from winter" party. I'm going the day before to suprise the kids w/their airline tickets to Hawaii. (dressed in grass skirt of course). The advance notice is so that they can wear any Hawaiin garb they have. The day of the party we'll be making leis, learning to hula, bowling w/empty 2 L pop bottles and a coconut and eating fruit kabobs and sipping drinks with little umbrellas. This is for a 2nd grade class BTW. I did it once before w/3rd graders and they loved doing something different than all the other classes. The kids love Bingo...I'm not putting that down...I just couldn't do it one more time!

[baandtheboys]

i know everyone always says this, but http://familyfun.go.com/
and check here for some games. best wishes with all those kids!
http://familyfun.go.com/games/indoor...ines-games-ms/

[nissen]

I like to read "The Day it Rained Hearts" by Felicia Bond.

I cut out hearts to match the story and have people come put them up at the right time. At the end I "rain" heart stickers on the all kids that they can take home and keep. You can ask them to try to guess at the beginning who the valentines are for and then as they come up in the story it is fun to see who they belong to. Easy and really fun.

[utmom24]

At that age we have done Bingo using conversation hearts, Read a Valentine story, frost cookies, make a Valentine for mom or dad, open up their valentines from the class, watch a short Valentine movie (like Clifford), we had a tray of Valentine things on it and they got to see if for 1 min, then had to write everything down in a paper that they remembered. I think 1st grade you can get away with anything. I'm working on a 6th grade party and that isnt easy, some of the mom's that want to help still think their kid is in 1st grade, it's crazy they want to play some of the more childish games.

[CamiLynn]

For my 1st grader's class, I'm going to take pictures of all the kids individually and then for their party we'll have them decorate foam frames and put their picture in it to give to a loved one.

[Jennie]

Valentines at that age is easy! Most of the time will be used for passing out and looking at valentines, so with that and a treat you will pretty much be out of time. I wouldn't plan too much. If you only have an hour it will go fast!