One of the five love languages is words of affirmation (click here to learn more!). Since this is Blake’s love language and it’s one that I sometimes forget I try to make sure that I plan an activity around words of affirmation. For Valentine’s day, we decorated mailboxes. I cut and taped boxes to make a small box that we could hang on our wall. The boys then used markers, paint sticks, and stickers to decorate them. I added their names and we hung them up! I printed out cute note paper and have been leaving simple and sweet notes in their mailboxes, click here to download the notepaper. On other days I’ve added fun surprises such as window clings in their boxes!
Here are some ideas on what you can put in there:
- Sweet notes
- An activity you can do together
- Coloring Pages
- A special candy
- A small but fun toy
- Games (it could be as simple as a paper with tic tac toe on it to play together!)
*If you put something like candy in there try to make sure it’s special. Something that they like or have been wanting to try. Part of it is so special is showing them that you know and listen to them!
Some alternatives to making a mailbox are:
- An envelope. I used envelopes and decorated them for Thanksgiving.
- Buy already made mailboxes (I’ve seen them at craft stores and Target).
- A basket on the table.
- Milk cartons
- Pringle Chip canisters
Some supplies to decorate it:
- Kiwi Stix
- Paint
- Stickers (Tip: whenever the boys bring home goodie bags or we receive free items I always pick through it to see what we can use, a lot of things come with some stickers that I throw into a bin)
- Markers
- Construction paper
- Rhinestones
- Confetti
- Tissue Paper
- Beads
- Pipe cleaners
We used our Kiwi Stix, stickers, and scrap contractions paper. We love Kiwi Stixs because it’s more or less mess free (and that’s a lot coming from us because the boys can make mess out of almost everything!). I also that you can color on top of the paints and it won’t mix and when it dries it stays on! Besides stickers we also always have colored paper on hand! I keep bin with bunch of our scraps and throw the big scraps in there. I hate wasting but when I kept everything it became a huge stressful mess. So by taking out the little ones that we probably weren’t going use anyways it helped to simplify our scrap area and we also use it a lot more!
After we finished decorating them I punched a hole in them and added tags with their name on it. I bought these name tags from Tadaima for our stocking and they were the perfect size for our Valentine boxes too!
The point is to have fun decorating it together and make these days special and fun. It’s to make sure your kids feel loved. Not know that you love them but to feel it! These little things are what your kids will remember. So use what you have and enjoy your time together!
Looking for more simple valentine’s activities, check out how we celebrated Valentine’s Day last year and the Valentine’s Day decorations we made!