Valentine’s Candy Heart Club
by Rob Schreiber and Sam Conrad

Mixer: Heart Match
Separate several boxes of conversation hearts into pairs of identical words / colors. Give each student one as he/she arrives. They must mingle and pair up with the people who have the same phrase. Bonus: Each pair, once found each other, comes up with a silly pick up line to share on the mic.

Supplies: 1 candy heart per person

Ongoing: Graffiti Wall
In those early moments of Club, while you’re still signing kids in, have a large piece of paper taped to the wall with buckets of markers and crayons below. Write prompts on the paper beforehand, like “name something you love” or “give someone else a compliment.” Allow students to draw and write all over the paper, but remind them to keep it kind and clean.

Supplies: Giant piece of paper, coloring utensils

Up Front: Candy Hearts Toss
Divide students into two groups and line them up facing each other. Place cups in a line between each pair. The students are given 5 heart candies each, and from a designated distance, must toss the candy hearts onto the cup. Most candies in the cup per group of students wins!

Supplies: candy hearts (5 per student) cups (1 per 2 students)

Mixer: Candy Hearts Pick Up
Divide students into relay lines, giving the first person in line a spoon. Across the room, each line should have a bowl of candy hearts and M&Ms. Have students, 1 at a time, relay-race style, run to the bowl and scoop up candy, which they should carefully bring back to their team. (Place a bowl with each team to hold the candy.) After each student goes, they should sit down and hand the spoon to the next participant in line. The group who transfers the most candy from one bowl to the other, using only a spoon, wins the game.

Supplies: candy hearts, M&Ms, 1 spoon per group, 2 bowls per groups

Mixer: Healthy Heart
Beforehand, write gym-class activities on slips of heart-shaped paper such as: push up, run, crabwalk, skip, leap, link arms back-to-back with a leader, etc. Place these pieces of paper in a bowl at the line kids will run to. While in relay race lines, have a student from each team run to the bowl and pick a heart. That player then returns to their team, following the instructions on the heart. Continue until everyone from one team has taken a turn, or until all players have had a chance to run.

Supplies: bowl of hearts with instructions on them

Mixer: Candy Box Tower
Split the room into groups, giving each group a bag of candy boxes. Have a competition to see who can make the tallest tower of candy boxes, by stacking them one on top of the other. When the time runs out, the team with the tallest standing tower is awarded a prize.

Supplies: candy heart boxes

Icebreaker: Conversational Hearts Story Game
Students are given 10-12 candy hearts with various messages and must use them to create a story. Have them write the story – leaders may need to encourage willingness to share in front of the group. Bonus: Award prizes for the most serious, the most mushy, the grossest, the funniest and the silliest stories. Tip: We suggest putting this right before the talk to slow kids down and get them focused on the person up front.

Supplies: 10-12 candy hearts per student, paper, writing utensils

Social Media Hashtags: #wyldlifeclubvaletines #ylclubvalentines
You can not only use these at your Club, but also use these before your club to find more ideas!