Valentine Party!

When it was decided a few days ago that our homeschool Valentine's party would be at our house, Alan immediately got busy decorating, and I got busy looking for some games and activities.

The first thing we did when guests arrived today was make Valentine mailboxes.

A whole paper plate for the back, a half for the front, decorated, hole-punched and laced together with yarn.  I wish I had gotten a pic of everyone's lined up waiting for Valentines, but here are my kiddos':

When everyone's mailbox was done and lined up the post office was open for business!  I think delivering their Valentines might have been their favorite part.

Next up we gathered 'round for some Valentine fishing.  Several years ago I glittered and laminated various sizes of red paper hearts.  I have no idea why, but they really came in handy for this game!

Before the party I taped a different activity assignment to the back of each heart and attached a paper clip.  The kids took turns fishing for a heart, then everyone would do the activity on the back.

"Hop like a bunny" and "hug 3 people" were crowd favorites.  Brooklyn thought "quack like a duck" was funny, even though she wasn't participating.

Even some of the youngest among us liked this game!

Then it was back to the table for games with conversation hearts.  First we stacked them:

Then, making sure each player had the same number of hearts (20), we sorted them into stacks by color to see who had the most of each color.  The player with the most of a color won a round of applause. :)

Finally, each player chose their favorite 5 hearts and got back on their feet to take turns dropping them into a jar.

I seriously lol'd when I ran across this next pic. I have no idea what these two see that is so shocking and disgusting!

After our games we snacked (or lunched? we couldn't decide.  Dale called it 'snunch'!) on bbq sausages, cheese sticks, cheese biscuits, crackers, cheese puffs, heart cookies, chocolate cupcakes, pink lemonade and black cherry koolaid.  What a feast! 

I loved what a group effort this was for all the mamas.  I hope it was as easy for them as they made it for me!  A fun time was had by all and you can be certain this group will be getting together again!