Valentine's Day is coming up and this is always a fun time for teen programming. There are so many different active and passive programs you can do with your teen patrons for middle school and high school.
Type: Active
Age: Middle school
Optimal size: 20+
Estimated cost: $51 - $100
Planning time: <2 hours
Frequency: Daily
Learning outcomes
- Create original work or responsibly remix existing content to make something new
● Engage in personal expression
Instructions
Love Rocks
Rather than making cards, teens can paint rocks with valentine messages to give to friends. Purchase rocks for painting on Amazon. We used these markers.
Valentine Squishies
Rather than making cards, teens can make valentine squishies. Purchase memory foam and puffy paint from Amazon. Have teens draw a heart shape on the foam then cut it out and shape it. Paint the squishie and write a valentine message using puffy paint. Click here to find more instructions. Pass them out to friends.
Valentine Clay
Rather than making cards, teens can make miniature valentines using polymer clay. You can purchase polymer clay on Amazon or any craft store.
Valentine Shrinky Dinks
Once again, rather than making cards, teens can make valentines using Shrinky Dinks. They can punch a hole in the plastic to make keychains and they can pass them out to friends. Or you can make them into pins. Purchase pinbacks and let teens hot glue the pins to their charm. You can purchase Shrinky Dinks paper on Amazon or any craft store.
Light Up Cards
Looking for a STEM valentine card project? Check out Spark fun.
Love Stinks: Anti Valentine's Day Party
- Most local grocery stores make unfrosted heart shaped sugar cookies around Valentine's Day. Pick up some frosting and sprinkles and let teens make anti-valentine's messages on their cookies.
- Anti-Valentine's Memes: Print out some over the top romance book covers and tape them on your walls. Let teens write meme messages on the pictures and choose the best one as the winner.
- Anti-Valentine's Target Shooting: Put up pictures of a teen celebrity couple on a window and give teens a suction cup air-gun. The teen who hits the target wins. We used this Nerf gun.
- During the party, serve the smelliest chips you can find. You can also have a stinky chip competition. Have teen partner up and blow in their partner's face after eating each chip. Their partner then ranks the stench. Take turns.
Evaluation
Love Rocks
The initial painting of the rock takes a long to time to dry and requires several coats. If you are doing a drop in, pre-paint the rocks in different colors and allow teens to decorate them. If you are hosting a longer program, have fans ready for a quick dry.
Valentine Squishies
Once again, these require 24 hour drying time. We gave teens a plate to take home to allow them to dry. Or you can allow teens to pick them up the following day. Squishies are all the rage right now and the teens loved making them.
Valentine Clay
Teens really liked making these but they struggled with the "miniature" concept. All of their creations were too big. I told them not to make them larger than one inch but if you are okay with big valentines, that's fine too. You'll need an oven; we use a convection oven.
Valentine Shrinky Dinks
Shrinky Dinks are also a crowd pleaser because they can draw something unique. You'll also need an oven for this craft.
Light Up Cards
This requires a lot of hands-on help. We hosted small groups of no more than five teens and I went through the steps with them. This was very helpful and they got really excited to see their card light up.
Love Stinks: Anti Valentine's Day Party
The teens enjoyed all of the activities and the target practice was by far the favorite. The stinky chip competition plays well with middle school than high school but they all enjoyed it.