Keeping up with the Kiddos: 1st Grade Valentine's Day Party

The last party of 1st Grade! Part of me is relieved to not have to plan another party and part of me can't believe that Ava is almost done with 1st grade. *tear* The party was a big hit with the kids. Here are the details.

BOOK

This book was pretty funny. The kids really enjoyed it. We always start off the parties with a book so that the parent volunteers have time to set up the room. Normally the kids are so excited for the party they can hardly pay attention to the book, but this one totally held their attention.

CRAFT

The Tree of Love - this is what we were going for. This is how Ava's turned out:

Cute, but not quite what we were going for. If I had it to do over again, I'd probably find pre-cut hearts. The kids had a hard time cutting out the hearts and the party was only an hour. We had planned to have them write the names of people they loved on the hearts, but we ran out of time. So...if you try to re-create this art project, I'd suggest that the kids first write the names of people they love on pre-cut hearts, then trace and cut out their arm and hand to make the tree trunk and branches, then glue everything onto the white card stock. If there's time, they can decorate their picture with markers.

SNACK

The Valentine Floats were the highlight of the party for Ava. We filled red cups with vanilla ice cream, then topped with Cherry 7Up. We found the red spoons and heart straws at Dollar Tree.

GAMES

We played 3 Minute to Win It game using Smarties (because Brach's Candy Hearts have possible nut cross-contamination). First, the kids tried to stack as many Smarties as they could in 1 minute, then they tried to use chopsticks to transfer the Smarties to a Dixie cup in 1 minute, then they used a straw to suck the Smarties into the Dixie cup in 1 minute. The competition and concentration was intense. By far the quietest moment of the party!

We also filled a jar with Sweetart Candy Hearts (no nut cross-contamination! Thank you Wonka!!) and had the kids guess the number of candy hearts in the jar. The kid who guessed closest got to keep the jar of hearts.