41 Unique Valentine’s Day Ideas When You Have Children

Valentine’s Day is a special day to celebrate love and affection. Although traditional valentines day is for a romantic couple, it doesn’t mean that you can’t celebrate it with your family. In fact, family activities can bring families closer together, and a day devoted to love is the perfect time to celebrate family! Use this Valentine’s Day as a time of family togetherness to share the love.

Now you may wonder what activities your family can enjoy together. Well, that is where this blog comes in handy because we have 110 amazingly festive activities that are perfect for Valentine’s Day for the entire family. Kids of all ages and parents will love these family-themed Valentine’s day activities.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Leave a comment and let me know which ideas you will try!

1. Create a family love jar – Place a jar somewhere you walk past often; every time someone passes, they must write encouraging words to each other. Read them at the end of the day (you can do this for the day, the month, or the year).

2. Make a photo booth – Choose to get crafty and make a big backdrop or buy some photo props, then take Valentine’s Day pictures together. 

3. Kids Choice – Allow your children to make all the decisions for the day and just go with it (within reason of course). The key here is to have fun when you partake in the shenanigans. You’ll creating lasting memories doing so.

4. Movie Night – Couch. Blankets. Valentine’s Day Popcorn. Then Relax with a family movie night at home. Movie Recommendations:

   Beauty and the Beast 

   The Love Bug

   The Sound of Music 

   Lady and the Tramp 

   Wild Hearts Can’t be Broken 

   Enchanted 

   Shrek 

   Love Comes Softly

   The Parent Trap

   Ella Enchanted 

   Gnomeo and Juliet 

   Flubber 

   The Princess Bride 

5. Kindness cards – Make Valentine’s Day card and teach your children about generosity. You can make your own kindness cards or purchase some from Etsy.

6. Pajama Day – Pick up a pair of matching family pajamas (these are xo with a heart). Pro tip: use the pajamas for your photo booth, you won’t regret it!

7. Virtual Family Vacation – Spend the day virtually walking, driving or flying across any major city around the world from the comfort of your own home.

8. Love Scavenger Hunt – Assign a construction paper color to each family member. Make paper hearts and write something you love about that family member. Hide the hearts around the house for a fun scavenger hunt.

9. Make Jewelry – Learn how to make these Valentine’s day rings using pipe cleaners. These heart rings are cute and easy to make! All you need is one or two pipe cleaners!

10. Dance Party – Turn up the music have a Valentine’s Day celebration with an evening at home dance party. Here is a Spotify playlist Pandora playlist. In case you need other suggestions here you go:

    Songs to slow dance to

    To Make You Feel My Love by Adele

    How Deep is Your Love by The Bee Gees

    Have I Told You Lately by Rod Stewart

    I’ll Be There by Mariah Carey

    I Got You by Jack Johnson

    Some Kind of Wonderful by Carole King

    Something by The Beatles

    Stand by Me by Otis Redding

    Uour Song by Elton John

    Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton

    Upbeat Songs to dance to

    Love on Top by Beyonce

    Love Never Felt so Good by Michael Jackson & Justin Timberlake

    Sugar by Maroon 5

    I Really Like You by Carly Rae Jepsen

    For Once in My Life by Stevie Wonder

    Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen

    I Want to Hold Your Hand by The Beatles

    The Way You Make Me Feel by Michael Jackson

    Love Train by the O’Jays

    I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston

11. Acts of kindness – Acts of kindness are great with your family they are even better! Drop a rose or a little bouquet of flowers with a kind note to strangers. It will for sure brighten up their day.

12. Picnic for Valentine’s Day – Make a picnic lunch or dinner only using valentine’s day themes. Hearts, Xs and Os being the easiest to form. Use this pan to make heart shaped pizzas.

13. Board games – Spend the day or the evening playing your favorite board games together.

14. Books – Gather your favorite love stories and take turns reading the pages out loud to each other. Bonus: read it by a campfire or your fireplace + you can make smores!

    Daddy Cuddles by Anne Gutman shows several father animals with their babies.

    I Love My Mommy Because by Laurel Porter-Gaylord has a mom and her son having goodnight cuddles.

    If Kisses Were Colors by Janet Lawler shows what love would look like in various physical items such as rain drops, acorns, and flowers.

    The Big Book Of Love by Trace Moroney describes what love feels like and shows different things you can love.

    Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney shows the story of a parent and child hare who enjoy comparing how much they love each other.

    I Love You Because You’re You by Liza Baker shows how a mother loves her child no matter how they act or what they do.

    Wherever You Are My Love Will Find You by Nancy Tillman shares how a parents’ love will always be with a child.

    I Love You Forever by Robert Muncsh, shows a mother repeating a poem to her son every night before bed, as she is dying, he repeats it to her.

    Additionally, here is a comprehensive list of 100 additional books about love

    If your child is a little older here is a comprehensive list of the 27 best romance novels

15. Make Family Tie Dye Shirts 

16. Take Silly Selfies – Use children, animals, filters, capture then vs. now pics, recreate famous movie scenes.

17. Make A Sundae Bar – The key is lots of toppings! You can use cherry pie filling, maraschino cherries, chocolate and strawberry syrups, colored sprinkles, heart shaped candies, conversation hearts, chocolate hearts and gummy hearts. Pro Tip: Family Dollar is great for a Valentine’s Day Assortment. Add each topping to little bowls so your family can help themselves.

18. Write A Song Together – Write silly songs together about love, Valentine’s Day or whatever you wish. Once you write the song go find a free beat to use for your song.

19. Make A Music Video – Once you have a song and a beat go make a fun music video, giving each person an opportunity to sing, rap or dance in the video. Don’t forget to tag me! #superstar

20. Red Foods Only – For the entire day eat red foods. You may need to get creative with your meals, however, here are a few things you can use: apples, red grapes, strawberries, raspberries, peppers, dried cranberries, salsa, grapefruit, cherries, Doritos, tomato sauce, and wine is red. Just FYI. 

21. Playground or Park Adventure – Challenge: to make hearts only using nature. You can do this with stones, sticks, leaves, petals, rocks, whatever you find. Pro Tip: Make a game as to who can make the smallest and the biggest heart?

22. Puppet Show – Put on a puppet show. Here is an easy DIY video to make puppets using your socks. You can always use a permanent market and scissors to make the faces and holes.

23. You Fancy Huh – Have everyone dress fancy for the day, regardless of what you do, put on your best clothing!  Perhaps for dinner have a stay-at-home candlelit dinner. Bonus: if you have little ones let them pick their own fancy clothes, it’ll make it more interesting. 

24.  Decorate Rocks – You are going to go outside and find some rocks; from there bring them inside to dry, decorate and paint. Here is a step by step process along with decoration ideas. Bonus: When the rock is still hot you can use crayons to color on the rocks, simply put the rocks in the oven and once they are hot color away. (Be super careful!)

25. Special Chocolate Dessert – As a family make a decadent chocolate dessert. Here is a recipe for chocolate fondue and molten chocolate lava cakes both being phenomenal options.

26. Hide & Seek – The loser gets to give everyone a kiss!

27. Family Breakfast – Make breakfast together as a family using Valentine’s Day as the theme. You can make heart-shaped pancakes dipped in Nutella and topped with strawberries! Yum.

28. Family Lunch – Make lunch together as a family using Valentine’s Day as the theme. You can make red and pink sandwiches by using Nutella and strawberry jam.

29. Family Dinner – Make dinner together as a family using Valentine’s Day as the theme. If you can cook you can make chicken parmesan pasta, if you’re a seafood lover try roasted red pepper shrimp linguine, if cooking is not your strong suit you can opt for classic spaghetti and meatballs. There are tons of options simply pick one and have fun cooking!

30. Make Heart Shaped Cookies – Let the kids decorate them using frosting or jam.

31. Order In – We all have one restaurant that we love, perhaps tonight instead of cooking, order dinner, pick it up, grab some candles, play some tunes, and have a candlit dinner.  from your favorite restaurant

32. Make Root Beer Floats – Ice cream and root beer, can life get better?

33. Decorate A Ball Jar With Flowers – Here is a great DIY tutorial if you want to make them as a gift.

34. Host A High Tea Party. Bonus if you read poetry and serve brownies.

35. Write A Story Together – Even better if you can end with a happy ending!

36. Dress Up In Costumes – The great thing about costumes is they are cheaper when Halloween ends. It’s not too late to be cupid or a box of chocolates, or whatever your heart desires. Spend the entire day dressed in your costume!

37. Make Fruit Kabobs – These are a great treat to eat throughout the day, you can use red grapes and make hearts out of watermelon!

38. Colored Rice Art – Die a handful of rice red and pink. Then use the rice to make Valentine’s Day art.

39. Valentines Day Blanket Fort

40. Homemade Valentine’s Day Cards – Grab some paper, crayons, and scissors to make Valentine’s Day cards for each other.

41. Love Coupons – Have everyone make coupons to pass out to each other for Valentine’s Day. These could be gifts of uninterrupted time, a massage, taking the kids for a night, cooking a favorite meal, washing the dishes, going on a date, etc.