Simple {and Frugal} Ways to Celebrate Valentine’s Day!

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Dear moms, you don’t have to spend a lot of money or spend a lot of hours crafting to make Valentine’s Day special for your family!! I firmly believe that SMALL, SIMPLE touches of love are just as meaningful! I have compiled some of my personal favorite ways to show a little love in February. I hope you find something here useful.

I like to start early in February…leaving little love notes for my kids, leaving a chocolate heart at their spot at the table in the morning, writing a sentence with candy hearts on their school table, etc. These are just a few simple ways to show your family you love them!

Last semester I shared quite a few art projects that I did with my co-op students! These are simple projects that anyone can do with their kids – even those that aren’t artists or art teachers, like me. 🙂 Click over to read my entire series called Teaching Art {With the Help of Pinterest.}

Heart Maps

The first thing we did in our co-op class last week was discuss the things in our lives that we LOVE the most! I had children brainstorm and call out things they love. The kids came up with answers like: family, God, pets, legos, mine craft, toys, horses, friends and more!

Then I told the kids we were going to make a map of their hearts. I had them draw a big heart on a white piece of paper, then the kids write the WORDS first before they draw the lines. After they have all their words of things that are important to them, they draw a line to give each important thing in their life its own space or “puzzle piece” on the map. When I showed the kids my example, they knew exactly what to do. Finally, the children lightly colored each space on their heart with colored pencils.

I especially thought that parents would love this little “heart map” from their children as a keepsake. Someday won’t it be fun to look back and see what our kids thought they loved most in 2014??

Check my Valentine’s Pinterest Board for tons more Valentine craft ideas!

Filling Buckets

After we finished our heart maps, we read the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today? I explained to the kids that this Valentine’s Day was going to be DIFFERENT. I wanted them to brainstorm ways they could BLESS someone around them instead of only hoping for gifts for themselves. We discussed ways we could FILL the buckets of our family members.

More Valentine Favorite Books:

And then, we learned how to cut out construction paper hearts (this is an important skill, you know!) and made little love notes for friends and family! This was just ONE way to fill someone’s bucket…we discussed lots of ways to do so! For smaller children, just writing “I love you” was enough. For older kiddos, they could write a little bit more on their heart/note.

And one more simple Valentine’s art project we did this week in co-op is this Oil Pastel Lined Hearts project!! I found this idea at Tara’s blog and they turned out SO WELL!! You simply draw 3-4 smallish hearts spread out on your paper, color in with Oil Pastels, and then outline each heart in various colors getting wider and wider! Coloring in each layer with oil pastels as you go. These turned out so beautifully! Thanks, Tara, for such a simple and lovely art project!

More Simple Ideas

Looking for more SIMPLE ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your family?? Be sure to check out my Valentine’s Day pinterest board with lots of ideas as well!

Get one set of plastic heart or Valentine dishes, use them every year!

Learn about chocolate with your kids!

Write love notes to your family!

Ideas for using extra Project Life cards as Valentine cards!

Use your chalkboard or plate to write simple LOVE messages!