Valentine Box Ideas for Middle School

by Jean Gochenour

Valentines Day offers a chance for children to experience the joys of sharing feelings with each other--affirming friendships and exchanging tokens of those feelings. Decorative Valentines Day boxes allow students to express their personalities while receiving important memories from friends. Whether you have minimal time and resources, or a lot of them, making Valentines Day boxes for or with your students is a worthwhile investment.

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Simple and Resourceful

Simple Valentines Day boxes can be made from any type of sturdy paper. Take a sheet of construction paper and fold it into thirds, hamburger style. Cut two slits on each end of the folded paper and open the paper up. The sheet will look like one solid third of paper with three arms sticking out of each side. Turn one set of the flaps towards you and lift up the outer flaps. Pull those flaps together and tape them behind the center flap. This makes one side of your box. Turn the sheet around and perform the same movements to make the other side of the box. Decorate and tape to the wall for a simple and low-cost box for valentines.

Effort-Intensive

If prior planning is a cinch, collect empty tissue boxes throughout the year. When you have gathered one box for every student, have them cut out the tops of the boxes and decorate the outside with construction paper, newspaper and markers. Students can visit DLTK's website (see Resources) for card holder ideas, including formats for puppy, bear and mouse card holder boxes, as well as paper plates and heart purses.
Classwide Box Project

With careful monitoring, creating valentine boxes can be a classwide project. Place each student's name in a hat or box. Have each student draw a name from the box and decorate a Valentine's Day box for that student using magazine clippings and drawings. This allows students to draw on what they know about each other and build new memories.