14 Free or Cheap Activities for Valentines

This year, I’m trying to be better about being the fun mom. You know her — she’s all over Instagram and Facebook with pictures of her and the kids doing fun, well-thought out activities. Now, I know life isn’t Pinterest- perfect, but I realized a bit ago that I could do better.

For a while, we didn’t do much that was fun. The kids did a lot more TV watching then is probably good for them. I am often exhausted, and when that happens, I don’t want to think up activities to do, much less prep, execute, and clean up.

In January, I came up with 25 things that were easy, low-stress, cheap, and sounded like my kids would enjoy. I printed them on snowflakes, and let the kids choose one snowflake to cross off each day. They loved it.

So this is installment 2 in the series. I came up with 14 activities based around the idea of love to get the kids ready for Valentines. Each of these is designed to show love for someone or something: our homes, our families, nature, ourselves.

There’s a cute little printable complete with ombre hearts that you can print off and put on the wall to keep track of your special activities.

The activities are:

Make a Valentine for your mail carrier and put it in the box. This can be as elaborate or as simple as you’d like. My kids love to color, so we’re going to print off a nice coloring page, color it, fold it up, and put a fun Valentine sticker on there.
Go to the library and check out books about families and love. Even if you can’t check out books, you can sit for a while and read 🙂
Make a heart sun catcher for the window.
Learn a new finger play to play with a friend. YouTube is my friend on this one. There are sooooo many cute little songs and finger plays. I’m thinking of doing this one with the kids.
Do an act of service for someone in your family. Go the extra step and make it a secret act of service!
Make a paper heart chain to decorate the house.
Make a heart-shaped bird feeder.
Make a Valentine for a friend. Again, as elaborate or as simple as you like. This is one I’m eyeing.
Have a dance party and let everyone pick one song. In the past, we’ve gotten out teddy bears to dance with. It’s fun to do dips and flips and twirls with your stuffed friend!
Go outside and pick up three pieces of trash to throw away. My kids like using a stick to stick trash. They also really love wearing plastic gloves and pretending to be planet-saving superheroes.
Make a video and send it to someone you love. TikTok, Snapchat, Marco Polo, or just a camera video and your email. Make it funny, silly, or serious!
Give yourself a heart-shaped temporary tattoo (or paint a heart on your face).
Give yourself a manicure. I let my kids soak their feet and hands in the tub, then clip and file their nails before finishing off with lotion. We don’t mess around with nail polish, but feel free to add anything you or your kids would enjoy!
Learn to say “I love you” in another language. We did French last year, and it was the cutest thing. I’m planning to teach sign language this year. If you need a pronunciation guide, this one is great!

And that’s the list! My family will be working through this for the next few weeks. If you join us, I’d love to see your fun in the comments, or tag me @homanathome on Instagram!