School Valentine's Day Card Ideas for Kids | Classroom Valentine on a Budget

This year is Keshav and Alisha's first Valentine's Day in school.  They'll be having a Valentine's Day card exchange in classroom and kids are encouraged to make cards with an optional choice of giving goodies (but no edibles allowed).  Since they have 20 kids in their class and I'd have to be making 40 cards total, I decided to make 20 non candy Valentine cards with goodies and 20 regular cards.  While it is common to give one same card to every kid in the class, I wanted to try different Valentine's Day card ideas (I need my own creative outlets too!) and I'm sharing some ideas here.

1. Play-Doh Valentine's Card
I saw other ideas on the internet like "Doh you want to be my Valentine" but I preferred this "I think you are a-doh-rable!"

You can get a party bag of 1oz Play-Doh cans and if you can get it during sales and discounts then each can could turn out less than $1, which makes sense when you have to gift 2 dozen cards in class.







2. Crayon Valentine's Card
I saw other ideas on the internet like "You COLOR my world" but I preferred this "COLOR your HEART out!" and I drew the heart with designs.  On some cards I put color pencils and some have crayons.

You can get individually packed crayons (which turn out pricey) or non-toxic bulk pack of crayons and divide it into 4 crayons for each card.  It doesn't even have to be primary red-blue-green-yellow colors!  In one card I have orange-brown-green-black colors because I divided the 8-pack color pencils into two, so the red-blue-yellow colors were taped onto another card! Used masking tape.


3. Car Valentine's Day Classroom Idea
I saw other ideas on the internet like "You make my heart RACE" but I preferred this "I am Wheelie Glad We're Friends!"  A hand-drawn border matching the color of the car, a ruler to draw the roads, taped the bottom of the car onto card using many layers of double-sided tape (because wheels are below the bottom of the car so many layers were needed).  What an easy and absolutely doable Valentine's Card!

4.  Maze Valentine's Card
I saw other ideas on the internet like getting the little bulk pack of a small maze with the same message but I didn't want to buy mazes particularly for this, so I printed a design of the maze, taped some feather onto pencils, taped a heart shape cut out from pink paper, and ran it through the slits made in the card, with the same message "You Are a-MAZE-ing!"

You can get a pack of 12 pencils from the Dollar store and a pack of feathers from there too (optional but makes the pencils look so much nicer like a cupid's arrow!), and this is the most reasonable way to make cards for like 2 dozen students in class!



5. Googly Eyes Valentine's Card for School
Another very easy Valentine's card within budget is this.  I chose to make 20 of these cards that Alisha will be distributing in her class, while Keshav will be giving out the ones with goodies.  Amidst all the cheesy and corny and lovey-dovey messages for kids' school valentine's cards that I came across and did NOT like, this one is so simple and cute!

You can get Googly Eyes from the Dollar stores, 1 pack for $1 has about 100+ pieces.  You can print almost 6 cards on a sheet of paper, and have the kids stick the eyes on the cards.  With $1 of googly eyes you can make 50+ Valentine's Day cards!!!!!!!!





6.  Balloon Valentine's Card Idea for School
I saw other ideas on the internet with balloons like "You make my heart POP" and "Love is in the air" with a heart shaped balloon (in red / white colors) but I preferred taping the balloon on card, drawing a basket to look like air balloon, and simply writing "Happy Valentine's Day".  Seeing very cheesy Valentine's day messages on classroom cards for kids annoyed me so much (no idea why, haha!) that on one card I wrote a simple "Please inflate and celebrate!" :D

But another classroom valentine's card idea within budget is with balloons.  You can get a pack of balloons and divide one balloon on each card, and there you have -- easy peasy Valentine's cards with minimal effort.  Especially when mothers end up making most of the cards for their little kids (mine are 3 years old!) this is a time-saver and money-saver.



7.  Glue Stick Valentine's card for friends
First two cards that I made I wrote "Thanks for being my friend" but after that when I made more cards I preferred to write "I'm glad we're friends.  Let's always STICK together!"

You can get a bulk pack of Elmer's glue sticks, for example a box of 30 glue sticks for almost $10.  With about 30 cents per glue stick taped onto a card, I found this to be another great way to send classroom valentine cards with a treat that is not candy, that is reasonably priced, that is not junk, and will be useful for kids too!






Let me know if you found this post on Valentine's Day card ideas for kids helpful!