When I was in elementary school, the valentines the children exchanged were the small paper kind that were sold in bulk in boxes. Those are still sold, and they’re my default for what I get for Neil to give to his friends. But as I realized when Neil was in kindergarten, sometimes the children will give candy to each other as well as or instead of a paper valentine. Despite the efforts of the food police, the school district hasn’t stomped out that option, presumably since the children won’t eat the candy until they get home. Increasingly, however, the children are making their own valentines. Neil himself asked me not to buy any valentines, and he made his valentines (all identical) on the computer. As proud as I am of him, I was quite impressed with the effort and creativity his classmates put into their homemade valentines.
The candy wrapped in a “rose bud” attached to a stem is becoming so popular, I wonder if they aren’t commercially sold. But they look homemade. Neil received two such valentines this year. This is one of them:
Another girl found, printed, or made a paper print with Legos on it and folded it into a small pocket into which she placed a candy and an even sweeter sentiment. Neil loves Legos, so he was particularly impressed. He folded out the pocket so I could take a picture of the print:
Personally, I was most amazed by the pop-up valentine one of the children made herself. The heart has two googly eyes and the message below was written on a computer and cut out.
On the front (which you can’t see), she placed another message (“From me to you” with a small picture of a frog prince) and a chocolate heart.
There were also a heart-shaped puppet, a candy airplane, two origami boxes (one with candy, one without), and more. It was really neat to see all the creativity and imagination of Neil’s peers.