I’m not big on Valentine’s Day myself (lots of reasons…too commercial, we should say I love you all the time, and I’m single so it is a bit of a downer to see everyone all gushy about each other) but this year, I’m kind of excited about it. V-Day falls on Brownie Night.
Here are some Brownie friendly crafts and ideas:
- Hand Stitched Valentine Card craft. We did this one year – during a meeting called “Backward Day”. We found out that when you make valentine cards on backwards day you may get a few “I hate you” cards. Whoops. Fortunately, the parents laughed. I’ve got plans to make kits up for next week too.
- Cross Stitched Heart Card – probably better for older girls. But equally cool.
- The Idea Room has photo cards (mabye for Brown Owl to make in advance) and a great list of activites (scroll to the bottom) like Valentine’s Bingo and Heart Yatzee.
- From Guider Joanne… How about a Heart Healthy Game (of course! why didn’t I think of that?)? Or Valentines for Vets (BEWARE – you need to do this in December or January, but a really nice idea).
What do you do with Brownies for Valentine’s Day?
We don’t really do Valentine’s in the UK at a child level, it’s more for romantic couples. So we don’t do anything for Valentine’s Day with Brownies!
We’ve done a few things over the years – Sparks and Brownies always like to decorate heart-shaped cookies and eat one and take some home. We’ve also played V.Day themed games, and also “healthy heart” Active Living activities and snacks. Another V.Day related activity is the Dep’t of National Defence “Valentines for Vets” project. It has to be done in December or early January, since they need to be mailed to the DND by mid January. We provide lots of pink and red paper, and cut-outs from many pretty greeting cards. I collect them from all over – some days while watching T.V. I just choose cards with pretty flowers and use a cardboard template to cut out a heart shape around the flowers. Heart and cupid stickers are also good to have, and now there are lots of scrapbookers with a variety of heart themed stamps. We print out verses for the girls to paste in the cards (so that the Vets can read the verses!). This year we are whipping cream (using hand beaters/whisks and electric beaters) as part of the STEM Key activities to have a sweet treat with fruit. The discussion will be what makes the cream become thicker, and how electricity makes it happen faster. But they are impressed about how it can be done by hand.
Hi Joanne – we did the whipping cream thing earlier in the year to great success. I hope it goes well. Great idea to make it Heart Healthy themed, vs all the lovey dovey stuff. It would be great if you could (or we could – I can help) write about your experiences with Valentines for Vets. Something we can plan for next year.