Valentine Card Holder Ideas

A fun Valentine's Day activity for an elementary classroom is having students make or purchase Valentine's cards for each other. As a craft project, you can help them create cute, clever, colorful card holders. After the students have made their card holders, they can then fasten them to their desks. On Valentine's Day, the children can tuck cards into their classmates' card holders, or you can appoint "mail carriers" to do the job instead.

Paper Plate Holder

For very young children, you may want a Valentine card holder idea that does not require them to use scissors or other potentially dangerous tools such as staplers. One simple yet enjoyable idea is to give them each a plain paper plate already cut into two pieces (cut them in half in advance) and a glue stick. Have the students glue the round edges of the paper plate halves together, leaving the top, cut edges unglued. They can then use the glue stick to glue on glitter, beads, shells or other decorative items to the paper plates, or decorate them with finger paints or crayons. Make sure each child's name is visible on his or her card holder so there is no confusion later.

Tissue Box Holder

Another card holder idea makes use of empty facial tissue boxes. About two to three months before Valentine's Day, ask parents to send in any empty cardboard tissue boxes they have. For the project, provide Valentine-colored wrapping paper, tissue paper or even construction paper. Give the children empty tissue boxes and show them how to wrap the box as they would a gift box. Cut a slit into the paper at the top of each box where the hole already exists. This will be the "mail slot" the children will use when delivering their Valentine's Day cards to one another. Have the students decorate their card holders using crayons, paint, markers or glued-on embellishments.