Home Children's Ministry Leaders Articles for Children's Ministry Leaders How to Host a Parent’s Night Out: Valentine’s Day Edition

How to Host a Parent’s Night Out: Valentine’s Day Edition

5:30-6:00 – Pizza and Drinks

We had planned on putting on some old-school cartoons and having the kids sit and watch them while they ate, but due to the wonderful weather things went a little differently. We had to practically drag the kids in from the outdoors to eat (only by telling them that they could go back out after they ate their food). Most of the kids just scarfed down their pizza and ran right back outside. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in kid’s ministry, it’s how to be flexible. If the kids are still loving something, why fight it?

6:00-6:30 – Free Time

We planned another 30 minutes of free time for after dinner, which worked out perfectly considering how dinner went. By this time, some of the kids were ready to settle down a bit and enjoyed the indoor activity stations we had set up during this time.

6:30-6:50 – Craft Time

Now, that the kids had all their wiggles out (many of the boys were sweaty and stinky at this point), we brought the energy down a bit for some crafts. We gave the kids three craft options to choose from: Robot Valentine’s Day box (for the manly boys), a heart charm bracelet (for the girly girls), and a candy bracelet (for anyone who likes candy). I bought all of these crafts in packages by the dozen on orientaltrading.com. I was very happy with the quality, price and coolness factor of all of these crafts, and the kids loved them too. Check out one of my “adult” leaders having way too much fun with craft time. 🙂

6:50-7:10 – Large Group Games

We decided it was time to get the kids moving again with some large group games. These got a little crazy considering the amount of kids and their high energy level, but it was a good kind of crazy. We played two Valentine-themed games.

  • Heart Islands (10 min) – We taped large red hearts that we had cut out of poster board all over the floor. One kid was chosen as a shark. When the music was playing everyone had to run around, but they could not stand on a heart. When the music stopped they had to get both feet on a heart. If their feet were not on a heart the shark could tag them! If they got tagged, they would become a shark too! We kept playing until there was a majority of sharks. You can remove hearts if necessary to raise the difficulty level for older kids.
  • Hide the Heart (10 min) – We created one big heart that would be hidden for this game, and showed the heart to the kids. For each round, one kid would be chosen to hide the heart anywhere in the room while all the kids waited in the hallway facing the other direction (several leaders need to go with them to prevent them from running off or peaking). When the kid had hidden the heart, we brought all the other kids back into the room to look for it. The first kid to find the heart gets to hide it next. Keep playing until it gets boring. We actually only played one round of this game because the kids had such a hard time finding the heart on the first round that we were out of time. Who knew it would be so hard to find a giant heart?!