Saturday, January 28, 2012

Secret Valentine

Every Valentine's Day at school our class has a "Secret Valentine" lunch.  Each child chooses another child's name and becomes his or her "Secret Valentine."
Here is a guideline for this project:

A week before Valentine's Day I send a notice home with the students.  This notice lets the parents know that students will be making lunch and decorating a shoebox for another child in the class.  It also has a tear off to return to class.  This includes the student's name, any food allergies, and 2 choices for a main item, a fruit, and a drink.  There is also a line in case they wish to "opt out" of this activity.
(If they decide to "opt out" I suggest to parents that they put their child's lunch in a specially decorated box with a theme of their choosing.)

The Friday before the scheduled lunch students choose another child's name and form randomly.  I fold them up and ask the child to point to one.  I always check to be sure they have not picked their own name.  I secretly keep track of who has picked whom in case of absence, mix up, or other unforeseen event.

Then I glue the edges of the form closed and attached a note to the parents.  I ask that they keep the name a secret until the morning of the lunch.  They can tell their child that they have chosen a boy or a girl and decorate the shoebox accordingly.  The reason I ask them to keep it a secret is because I have seen the look of disappointment on the faces of children who have found out ahead of time.

The parents and child choose the lunch menu from the child's list and put it all in the box,

I also ask that the top of the box be wrapped separately from the bottom for easy opening and that they send the box to school in a bag so that no one will see who walks in with a "particular" box.  If it works for your class, you can ask that a small but special Valentine treat or gift be included as well.

The name of the child for which lunch is made is put on the box, the child who makes the lunch can put a note inside the box.
On Valentine's Day, before lunch, we set up all the tables in our garden (we can do that in February in Florida), the boxes have been laid out in front of each child and they get to guess who made their lunch.  We sit together at the long table and "ooh and ahh" over the treasures in the box. 

After lunch we put the boxes around the tables and the students put their Valentines into the boxes. They take their box home filled with Valentines, treats, and memories.

2 comments:

  1. What a fun idea! I love the special memories this creates. I pinned your post to my Kids' Valentine's Day Activities Pinterest board at http://pinterest.com/debchitwood/kids-valentine-s-day-activities/

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  2. Thanks Deb, I am going to post another activity later on.

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