Valentine’s Day is a ton of fun- but it produces a lot of trash. This year we have been pleasantly surprised that one of our teachers has asked that our daughter bring in a brown bag that she decorated and fill it with three objects that she already had at home. We love this idea because it forces the kids to be creative and thoughtful and offers a Valentine’s Day- low waste style.
The typical experience for us has been that the kids are expected to bring in commercial cards, write their name on it, and then the students just dump one card into each kids commercially bought box. Even though this sounds like a fun practice, we have seen year after year that our kids just throw away the whole thing when they get home. This was anything but a zero waste Valentine’s Day. Asking the kids to think “outside of the box’ and create a DIY gift bag that they decorate themselves and then fill with trinkets they think their peers would like has been an incredible experience to watch.
For our other daughters we will have to come up with another idea since they are not doing the gift bag exchange. Some things that we have come up with are melt and pour heart soaps, sewing little hearts in two colors for tic tac toe, and painting rocks. Our school does not allow homemade treats at the moment, but we could bring in prepackaged treats (we would look for something that is wrapped in paper versus plastic. For the teachers we are considering using a bulk jar and filling it with goodies like coffee beans, sweets, bath salts, etc.
What are some fun things your family has tried? I’d love to find some additional inspiration!
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