Fun and creative Valentine's for the classroom

As promised, I wanted to follow up and let you know which Valentine my son chose to make for his classmates! Click here to see the four non-food choices I let him choose from. At first, he was torn between the bugs in a jar and the bouncy balls, but ultimately decided that all of his friends would really enjoy playing with the bouncy balls. He said, and I quote, "Some of the girls don't really like bugs."... (I can totally relate to them, kid). Bouncy balls it is! The original post featured a black cardstock heart, however, I didn't have any black cardstock, and I was trying to use as many materials that I already had. I have an entire ream of yellow cardstock, so we went with that. I purchased 2 sets of bouncy balls from Amazon (see picture link below if you'd like to purchase as well!). Here we go....

My son didn't want to do a heart shape. He said it was "yucky" and that he doesn't love his classmates (lol), but he just wanted to tell them that he thinks they are all awesome. He has a heart of gold and really understands emotions very well. I agreed that we didn't have to make hearts, so he decided since it needed an outer space feel, that we could do a cool star. I made the image in PowerPoint (my absolute favorite program of all time!), put some text in there to personalize it from Jacob, and other text saying "You're out of this World! Happy Valentine's Day! From, Jacob." Depending on what size bouncy balls you purchase, it's important to know their diameter so that you can create a circle snug enough for them to fit by themselves. For the balls that we bought, I made my circle 1.25".  They came out great! I was able to fit two on a sheet. He has 12 classmates, so I printed 6 sheets all together. 

 

My son and I cut the star images out, and he began to write all of his classmates names on each star while I used an exacto knife to cut out the interior circle. 

After all of the names were written on each star, and each circle was cut out, it was my son's favorite part - putting the bouncy balls in! He had so much fun deciding who would get each color based on what he knew their favorite color was. 

Ta-da! All done! It was a very simple and fun little project for us to work on, and we had a bouncy ball party in the kitchen with all of the extra balls we had! (until the dogs started getting feisty chasing them!).  It's a great option for the kids without having to give them more sugar, or possibly risk a child missing out due to an allergy, but the fun is ten-fold!

If you have any questions about anything we did, please feel free to contact me! 
Happy Crafting!