Let’s Ditch Classroom Valentines: New Ideas for Celebrating Valentine’s Day

I have a son in grade five and a daughter in grade three. By my estimates, that means I have bought around 2,500 bits of paper for the kids to hand out to their classes on Valentine's Day. That also means I have received over 2,500 bits of paper ... which ended up in the garbage and recycling. Each year, Valentine's Day creeps up on me. I have just recovered from the Christmas break and am relaxing into the daily routine, and then suddenly BLAM, here are two class lists, and "WE HAVE TO GET SOMETHING FOR THE CLASS, MOM!" in stereo assails my senses, energy and pocket book. Between the two kids, I have ten years of experience in dealing with this, not including preschool, and it still throws me into a panic every single time.

I try to avoid buying cheap dollar store cards, so I have popped pounds of popcorn and have gotten the kids to put the snack into individual bags. I have made cupcakes for entire classes with pink icing. One year, I bought lollipops and had the kids write and tie nametags on each one. Me and the kids have crafted our little hearts out for V-Day, but to be honest, I have disliked every minute of it.

I would like to see a Valentine's Day that wasn't about collecting the biggest pile of pink cards from your fellow classmates. I wish it could be instead a time when schools focused on something like what it means to be a friend, or a discussion in showing how you care about someone. There are so many other ways we could use Valentine's Day as a learning tool for good instead of purely marketing. Below are some of my ideas:

• My son's class visits a seniors' home on a regular basis, so why not have the kids make cards for the residents there instead? Or bring them cupcakes!

• The kids could write letters to show someone that they love them. They could bring in a self-addressed envelope with a stamp, and send the letter to someone they love via snail mail.

• Turn Valentine's Day into a bake sale day at school, and classes could donate the money raised to the charity of their choice.

• Have the parents contribute the usual cost of all those store-bought cards to the class, where it could go toward a pizza party for the kids, and the leftover money sent to a cause of their choosing, like the local SPCA.

• The class could make cards to send to the Children's Hospital.

Let's teach children how to make Valentine's a day where we show our love and thoughtfulness toward others.

Do you have any ideas on how your kids could celebrate Valentine's Day? 
 

Kerry Sauriol is the Vancouver mom behind the blog, Crunchy Carpets. She has three children and sundry pets, and tries to balance it all while keeping her sanity. Her blog focuses on the juggling act called parenting - in her case, the act of juggling a preschooler, two burgeoning "tweens" and keeping everyone out of therapy when they're older.