Valentine's Day Kindness Countdown

This Kindness Countdown is a fun way to bring a little more love into your home this Valentine's Day!

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Even though Valentine's Day is more about romantic love, in our home we like to focus on family love during the month of February. Each year I try to find some way to motivate the kids to show extra love to their siblings, and this year I thought we'd do a Kindness Countdown.

I had so many different ideas for how to do the countdown and I couldn't decide which I liked best, so I made four. You can choose your favorite. :)

I like the envelopes and the little packages because it's a surprise what the assignment will be for the day. I tell the kids that these are like Secret Missions. Kids love secret missions. Each morning they are to choose one package, open it, and complete what is written on the heart. Once completed, they can eat the Hershey Kiss inside the package. They can then take the heart and tape it up by our "Love at Home" sign. This will be a way to show how many good things they've been doing for each other. I also have extra hearts they can tape up if they want to do extra good deeds each day.

For the secret missions, I tried to think of things I'd like to see my kids do for each other. Also, if someone is having a hard time with a sibling, I will write on the heart for them to do something specifically for that sibling, such as "Make Joshua's Bed". Just substitute a name each time I wrote "someone".  It's easier to love each other when we serve each other.

Here are some secret kindness mission ideas:

1. make a bed
2. clear someone's dishes for them
3. put away some toys
4. give someone a hug
5. let someone else have the first turn
6. hold the door open for someone
7. write a nice note for someone
8. read a book to someone
9. play a game with someone (and let them win)
10. leave one of these kisses on someone's pillow (I put 2 kisses in this package)
11. help someone get breakfast
12. draw a picture for someone
13. help someone clean their room
14. tell someone what you like about them
15. call your grandparents to tell them you love them
16. write a thank you note to daddy
17. write a thank you note to mommy
18. put away someone's laundry
19. hide notes of love in someone's room
20. clear the dishwasher unasked

(Here is the PDF of the hearts I used with my kids with some blank ones to add your own)

All of these are ones they can do in the home, but you could expand it to include kindness outside the home as well. What ideas would you add?

I think the envelopes are my favorite method of delivery. All I used was felt, a glue gun and a button.  And they are reusable, so that's good. I cut a piece of felt into a long rectangle, glued it to make a pocket, rounded the top, cut a slit where I wanted a button, and used a little dab of hot glue to adhere the button. No sewing involved.

For the paper packages, I used double sided tape to make a loop of cute paper, flattened one end and sealed with double sided tape, filled it with the kiss and heart and sealed the other side with double sided tape. They'll have to tear it to open it, so . . . not reusable.

For the roses, I took two kisses, wrapped them in red cellophane, stuck in a small skewer and wrapped it with floral tape. Then I tied on some curly ribbon and slid the heart up onto the ribbon. The kids who don't get this one will protest since each of these has two kisses and the other packages only have one. I'll just have to eat the second kiss each day to make things fair.

I had an old broken picture frame I used for the last countdown calendar. I tied/hot glued 3 pieces of twine across the frame and used little clothespins to attach the hearts and kisses. It's cute, but the kids might think it disappointing that the secret missions aren't very secret. I guess I could've folded the hearts so they couldn't see what was inside. Next time . . .

Which is your favorite?



Here are some more ideas for focusing on family love during February:

"Love at Home" sign and activity

Filling our Home with Love

The Love Bug

Special Valentine's Day Breakfast

And be sure to check out my Valentine's Day board on Pinterest for more great ideas!

Follow Chicken Babies's board Valentines on Pinterest.


This post is part of 100 Acts of Kindness Challenge from Toddler Approved and Coffee Cups and Crayons! Head over to check out more great ideas for spreading kindness!

No-Sew Heart Garland

I had seen cute felt heart garlands on pinterest and wanted to make one for my mantle.  The ones I had seen were made of hearts cut from felt and sewn together in a line, but I had no desire to cut out a bunch of hearts.  I started looking around and found some pre-cut felt hearts, but they were the peel-and-stick variety.  I thought "I can't sew through those! But wait . . . . I could just stick them back to back around a string and then I could even skip the sewing part! Yes!"

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And that's what I did.  I found these packs of Stick-it-Felt Heart Shapes at a local store and bought a few of them. The packs come with two different sizes of hearts in 4 colors.  I used just 3 of the colors (I didn't care for the hot pink).  I took the paper back off of a couple of hearts, laid a thread down the middle of one and put  the other sticky heart on top. I just continued sticking them to the thread until it was as long as I wanted. The felt hearts have a nice weight to them.  I'm happy with how it turned out.  

My garland is about 10 feet long.  It was not so long at first, but I left string on each end when I first hung it up.  When I decided I wanted some hearts hanging from side, I just made a new strand, tied it to the first one about a heart apart, and then stuck a new heart over the knot.  Did that make sense?  My mind is a little fuzzy tonight.  

I'm still working on the rest of the mantle. :)

The kids really enjoyed helping with this project.  It's pretty simple and they can do it on their own (although I had to lower my expectation that the hearts would be lined up perfectly).  They want to make lots more to hang around our house and their rooms.  

"Love at Home" sign and activity

While Valentine’s Day is usually a time for romantic love, I like to concentrate on love in general, since we have little kids in the house.  

I made this sign to help us focus on God’s love for us and the love in our family.  It quotes one of my favorite songs, “Love at Home”. I took this phrase from the last verse, which is one of my favorites.  It says “Oh, there’s One who smiles on high, when there’s love at home.”

I painted a 12x12 board with pink paint and then just cut out the words on my silhouette and applied them.  I drilled some holes in the board and hung it from a ribbon. Not very fancy, but I like it fine.

I talked to the kids about how it makes God happy when we have a happy home, which can be achieved by being considerate of each other and serving each other in our family.  I told them that when I saw them doing something that helps bring love into our home, they could put up a paper heart.  

The kids were very excited to start.  The first morning at breakfast, I mentioned that we still needed spoons on the table, and the 3 older kids all jumped up from their seats and raced to the utensil drawer.  I then explained that we weren’t going to fight over who got to do service, and that it’s also creating love in our home when someone lets someone else do something they wanted to do. 

Originally I was writing on the hearts who had done what to get the heart as a record of the kind acts I was seeing, but I soon found that the kids thought it was some kind of a competition and I kept hearing “I have more hearts than you now!” which was not the intent of the activity.  So I had to explain that when the wall is full of hearts, we are all winners regardless of who did the most kind acts, and also that when you do a kind act to try and beat someone else it doesn’t really count.  Who knew this would be so complicated?  Now we just put up blank hearts, and I hope they have stopped keeping score.  

I think this will be a fun activity for us leading up to Valentine’s Day.  

"Love" blocks

A while back I had pinned this project on pinterest thinking it would be a nice, easy activity to do with Maren someday.  We had a chance to make them on Monday and I think they turned out pretty cute.

We cut a 2x4 to the desired lengths and sanded them smooth.  She wanted hers all the same size.  I wanted mine different sizes.  I had found a cute pad of valentine's papers at Target along with some coordinating embellishments.  We put Mod Podge on the wood and smoothed the paper over it.  When it was dry, we sanded off the edges of the paper that were too long.  Then I got to use my new Silhouette Cameo to make some vinyl letters to go on the blocks.

I offered to make hers some new bigger letters once we saw that they looked a bit small on the blocks, but she said liked them that way.

Maren took her set of blocks up to her room for a valentines decoration and mine went up on the mantle.  I hope she'll keep them even when she's all grown up and remember the time we spent together.

Special Valentine's Day Breakfast

A while back, my friend Alyssa told me of a tradition her mom used to do for them growing up - she would make a really fancy breakfast for the kids to wake up to on Valentine's Day morning.  Since we homeschool and the kids miss out on Valentine's parties at school, I thought this would be a fun way to celebrate.

Last year was our first year, and I didn't tell the kids what I was planning.  After they went to bed, I decorated the table, tied balloons to the chairs, and set out their surprises.  In the morning I put the food on the table before they woke up.

We had lemon poppyseed muffins with heart sprinkles (heart sprinkles make anything valentinesy).  We also had strawberry mini-wheats cereal, grapes, strawberries, danimals drinkable yogurts, and anything else red I could find.  I had made heart cookie pops for a centerpiece.  I didn't make a hot breakfast.  I figured the red stuff was fun enough.

We put their mailboxes on the table with notes from us in them, and put some treats on the table too, like cookies, yogurt covered raisins, conversation hearts, box of animal crackers, and chocolate lollipops.

I used a mold from my mom to make the lollipops.
We used to give these to our teachers at school.

My mom always made us a big sugar cookie heart with our names on them growing up, so I wanted to do the same for our kids.

I can't believe I didn't even make one for Nathan.
Poor neglected 4th child. 

Nathan was my early riser back then, so he got to enjoy his breakfast before the other kids came down.

All the kids were surprised and excited.

It was a lot of fun, and a tradition I think we'll keep.  However, it is a little less fun when it's not a surprise.  The kids keep asking "Are you going to do the breakfast again this year mom?  Are you?"

a Valentine Craft so easy a child can do it

The other day we pulled out the red pipe cleaners and some pink pony beads.  Voila!  Heart decorations.  We cut the pipe cleaners to make different sizes.

Maren also made Cupid's bow and arrow, and a flower, and
is that a candy cane?  Crazy girl.  

We decided to hang them with thread from our kitchen light.  It turned our boring fixture into a fancy valentine chandelier.

The kids like them a lot.  Especially the one that has curly cues in the middle of it, because they say it looks like a mustache, so they call that heart Mr. Mustache.

Chocolates

Every Christmas growing up that I can remember, my mom would make delicious homemade chocolates. She would make the centers, temper the chocolate, hand dip the centers, put them in little paper cups, and package them in nice white boxes tied with a gold ribbon. We always got to eat leftovers from the "reject" plate - chocolates that weren't quite pretty enough to give away. If there was any chocolate left over, she would make molded chocolate lollipops for Valentines.

Now it's my turn to be in charge of chocolate making. It's not the healthiest skill to know, but I enjoy making things that I can give away as a nice gift and make other people smile.

I've had a few people ask about how I make the centers so I thought I'd share the recipes I use. I dip the centers in Guittard chocolate which needs to be tempered. A few years ago my mom bought me a chocolate tempering machine for christmas, which makes it a lot easier to dip the chocolates. If you don't want to invest in a temperer, or hand temper chocolate, you can just use candy melts or chocolate bark.

Chocolate truffles

1 1/4 lb. sweet chocolate (about 4 cup finely chopped chocolate)
2/3 cup heavy cream
3 T. butter

Melt chocolate over low heat (double boiler). Cool slightly. Heat butter and cream to 140 degrees. Cool to 120 degrees. Stir cream and butter into the chocolate. Beat with mixer until it is pudding consistency. Let chocolate rest for one minute. Beat again for a minute or until chocolate goes about one shade lighter. Can be flavored if desired at this point. Pour into Saran-Wrap lined square pan. Refrigerate. Cut into squares and dip while still cold.

(I usually add peppermint extract and then dip them in dark chocolate. Really Really good. I also tried raspberry extract this valentines day and those were yummy too. But I still like the peppermint better.)

Cream Fondant

1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup white karo syrup
4 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt

Place liquids in heavy 6-8 qt. saucepan and add sugar and salt. Stir and bring to quick boil. (After boil, cover pan briefly (30 seconds) to steam crystals from sides of pan.) After you take off the lid, clip on candy thermometer. Do not stir from this time on. (for reason why see here) Cook to 238 degrees, or softball stage. Remove from heat and pour, without scraping pan, onto a marble slab. (what! You don't have a marble slab? I hear you can also use a shallow pan, but I've never tried it) Cool until you can flick the candy with your finger and the candy takes 10 seconds to fill in the space. Add 2/3 cup marshmallow cream (you can also add flavoring and food coloring at this time if you want it all to be the same flavor) and beat until candy begins to lose its gloss - about 10 min. Let rest for 3 to 4 minutes. Continue beating until candy stiffens and completely loses its gloss. Put in container until you're ready to roll it into balls and dip. If you want different flavors, you can divide it and knead in the flavoring at a later date. It gets pretty sticky if you overwork it though. I usually do orange, lemon, and mint fondant, and tried raspberry this valentines day (as pictured). It was good.

The fondant is a bit tricky, especially if you haven't seen someone beat candy before. It's kind of the same process as fudge, with the crystalizing at the right moment. You can read about the science of it all here. Sometimes the fondant won't "turn" for me, and I use my hair dryer to heat it back up and then I try beating it again. It can be frustrating.

When I'm getting ready to dip the fondant, I spray my hands with Pam spray and roll bits into balls. I let them sit a bit to harden slightly on the outside so they're easier to dip.

I also use this recipe to make fudge, just adding some chocolate with the other ingredients.

Butter Caramels

1 cube unsalted butter
2 cups heavy cream (split)
1 3/4 cups light Karo syrup
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Bring all ingredients except 1 cup cream to a boil in heavy saucepan. Add withheld cream a little at a time without reducing the boil. Cover briefly (count 30) to steam crystals from sides of pan. Cook without stirring (same reason as fudge) to 242 degrees or firm soft ball stage. Pour into Pam-sprayed or buttered 9x13 glass pan and cool. Cut into squares when cool, or, while still warm, spoon over chopped pecans for turtles.

I have found that, for me, cooking to about 236 degrees makes the caramel how I like it. The temperature you cook it to will depend on where you live and the weather. Candy stores usually keep track of each batch of candy - what the weather was like at the time of cooking, what temperature it was cooked to, and how it turned out.

If you want to come make candy sometime, just let me know!

Valentine's Day Homeschool 2011

School time was shortened for Valentine's Day this year. We had some deliveries to make, so we mostly just did some fun math things with conversation hearts and a valentines worksheets I had printed from the internet.

We started by doing a lot of estimating. We estimated how much our conversation heart boxes weighed and checked using our balance scale. We estimated how many were in the box, which color we would have the most of, and which we would have the least of. We found out how much 7 conversation hearts weighed, or 10, or all 21.

Then we sorted and graphed the colors in our box and compared graphs.

Next we chose 10 hearts and put them in alphabetical order.

Maren wrote a story using the phrases from 10 conversation hearts. It was a story about a man who sold cupcakes, and the cupcakes were "too hot".

Joshua and I played "Valentine Battleship" which was an idea I found on one of the educational websites. I'm sorry I don't remember which one. Joshua loves playing battleship, so I knew this would be a great game for him. I just made a grid on 2 pieces of paper and we put hearts on the intersecting points. We took turns writing out our guesses on a different piece of paper so we would remember what we had already chosen. If you found your opponents heart, you got to eat it.

Christopher and I made patterns with the conversation hearts. At first he would just randomly put them in a line, and I kept trying to correct him. Finally he got really frustrated and said "fine mom. see?" and he made a perfect repeating pattern and then said "now I do it my way!" and put them back in a random line. So at least he knows how to make patterns. He just chooses not to.

While we ate snack I read a cam jansen valentine book to them. The rest of the morning was spent tracing, cutting, and writing on hearts to prepare to go decorate Daddy's office as a surprise. We made him a valentine with the kids handprints on it that said "We love our handsome daddy".

Love Bug

Every February the love bug visits our home. The first day she leaves the kids a note by their valentine mailboxes, telling them that she loves to watch the kids be loving to each other and will leave treats in their mailboxes when they treat each other well. The love bug writes notes to them praising the good things they did for each other the day before and leaves a little valentine something in their mailbox, usually cheap stuff from walmart, but hey, she's on a budget. One day it might be a hershey kiss, the next a plastic valentine cup, or a heart eraser. Maybe they'll find a heart silly straw to drink their morning milk with. Sometimes I have to gently remind the kids that the love bug is watching and they better shape up.

The kids think visits from the love bug are lots of fun, and my daughter decided that the love bug must be living in the love at home box I made earlier in January, and has added a mailbox to the door so that she can write letters back to the love bug. The love bug does like getting thank you notes.

Filling Our Home with Love

Since Valentine's Day is approaching, our new "be nice to each other" incentive is a little house that we are trying to fill with hearts. I made the house out of an empty square kleenex tissue box and scrapbook paper I had left over from years past when I actually thought I'd have time to scrapbook. The roof is open on the back so the kids put the hearts through the hole where the tissues came out. The hearts I'm using are foam heart stickers left over from valentine making last year. I counted out 65 and when we've put them all in, there will be a family reward.

The kindness in our home really has improved since we've started focusing on it using things like the warm fuzzy jar, happy home, and christmas tree. There are definitely bad days, but overall the children are quicker to compliment each other when we're doing a project together, to let others go first, or to cheer up a sad sibling. Eventually of course I'd like it if they would do those things just because, and not to try to earn a prize, but we've all got to start somewhere.