By TMoM Team Member Suzy Fielders

During COVID we were forced to learn how to really have fun at home. However, from those experiences we learned there are so many family activities that bring us joy. Valentine’s Day was a great example. Two years ago during the ongoing pandemic I hosted an At-Home Valentine’s Day Party for my daughter, nephew, and niece to make the most of the holiday. Looking back it was such a fun time and something I recommend parents and families consider doing even post-pandemic.

Therefore, I’m resharing this blog full of ideas for Valentine’s Day fun for all ages! At the time, I decided to throw two at-home Valentine’s Day parties… one with my 14-year-old daughter and I. Then, one with my daughter, my 7-year-old nephew, and my almost 5-year-old niece.

Below are some of the activities and food we had at both parties. Feel free to customize these to your kid’s ages and interests for your Valentine’s Day party this year! Leave your ideas and tips in the comments below for others to use!

Teenage Girl-Themed Valentine’s Day Party

We made this a movie party! While watching the movie Valentine’s Day (the one with the multiple love stories based in LA), we also had a few fun activities we did together. First, we ate lunch because well lunch always goes perfect with a movie.

Next, we did our nails with the pictured Valentine’s inspired nail wraps. If you like these, you can find them here on Amazon. We love nail wraps as they are basically like stickers to put on your nails. This means they do not require the hassle of waiting for dry time and are mess-free!

Lastly, we drank Shirley Temples from fancy martini glasses. We made our simply by mixing Sprite with red grenadine. You can add different amounts of grenadine depending on if you want it pinker (like ours) or a brighter red. Finally, we put maraschino cherries on the side of the glass as the garnish.

 

All Ages Valentine’s Day Party

We had such a fun time with my niece and nephew. My daughter helped me prepare a lot of the games, activities, and food for this party. It was another fun bonding time and is a great way to get teenage kids involved with younger kid activities.

Activities

Below is the breakout of all the activities we enjoyed during our at-home party! I will go into further detail on each item and give links after the bulleted list. There are also plenty of pictures to see all our fun!

• Candyland – with real candy!
• Valentine’s Bingo
• Heart-Scotch Hop
• Pin the Heart on the Fox
• Valentine Heart Leis craft

The winner of every game received a Valentine’s Day prizes. I purchased a couple packs of Valentine’s Day themed pencils as the prizes and placed them in a container for the kids to pick from if they won.

 

Candyland

I have fond memories of playing Candyland with my sister as our mom as gave us real candy for each of the ‘lands’. As Valentine’s Day is candy-focused it seemed like a great choice for this party. There are five ‘lands’ to have candy for in the newer version of the game.

1. Nana’s Hutt House – My daughter has severe nut allergies, so we opted for butterscotch chips as they look similar to little nuts!
2. Frosted Palace – Alright so I improvised a lot on this one as I figured ice cream would be messy, so I used little marshmallows in a cup.
3. Licorice Lagoon – I used Twizzlers for this one.
4. Lollipop Palace – this was an easy one since I could just use suckers!
5. Peppermint Forest – I used the softer peppermint candies as candy canes are not really in stock this time of year!

Valentine’s Bingo

My daughter made bingo cards for everyone using different colored hearts for the spaces. She also made matching cards I could pull to announce the items. Each player used pennies to mark the spaces that were called on their cards.

Heart-Scotch Hop

This game is basically hopscotch but with hearts instead of squares. I got the idea from this site and they even include different ideas to add more fun to the game. The site also features tons of other fun Valentine’s Day themed games.

   

Pin the Heart on the Fox

I got this game from Amazon. It is a Valentine’s twist on the Pin the Tail on the Donkey game. It includes the poster, heart stickers, tape to mount the poster, and the red eye-mask blindfold. We spun everyone around three times before they tried to pin the heart on the fox.

       

Valentine Heart Leis craft

Any good kid’s party has a craft mixed in there! I wanted something easy, but also cute so it would be good for all ages. Plus, I wanted it to not require a ton of supplies. This Valentine Hearth Lei was relatively easy to make and required 7 items to make. You can find out the supplies needed and steps for this cute craft here.

 

Food

No party is complete without good food and beverages! We also enjoyed two awesome snacks at our home Valentine’s Day party. Those were:

• Valentine’s Trail Mix
• Cupid Floats

 

Our Valentine’s Trail Mix included:

• Corn Chex
• Pretzel Sticks
• Mini Marshmallows
• Craisins
• Valentine’s Day M&M’s
• Chocolate Chips
• Butterscotch Chips

If you have Ziplock bags with labels on the front, you can also put each child’s name on the front to personalize the snack.

The last item we enjoyed at our party was a Cupid Float. I found the simple recipe here. Unfortunately, I was not able to find any cherry soda – I was originally trying to track down Cherry 7-Up. So, I used Sprite with Cherry Grenadine from our Shirley Temples instead. This item was a big hit among all ages; therefore, I highly recommend you include this tasty, yet easy treat.

I hope everyone enjoys these fun Valentine’s Day party ideas!

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