Cupids Arrow: Cheap and Easy Valentine’s Day Activity

Technically, it is Cupid’s blow dart but that doesn’t sound nearly as festive. I’ve got a really fun activity that I’ve been using in therapy all week. I has seen a version of this activity on kidsactivityblog.com. Check it out HERE.

My clients love anything that involves crumpling things up, knocking things over or throwing things, so I knew I wanted to use this in therapy. I was at the store and saw some pink cotton swabs and thought it would be a fun way to use this as a Valentine’s day activity.

What do you need

• Cotton Swabs
• Straws
• A target (optional)

I love stacking cup games, so I picked up these cute Valentine’s day cups at Target.  They were too sturdy for the cotton swabs though.  They didn’t know over when I was playing.  Perfect for practicing frustration tolerance.  

I still have a lot of leftover stickers from my scrapbooking days, so I used these on some pails from a dollar store to set up buckets for points.  I didn’t have a zero sticker-so I just made the last bucket be a nine.  Perfect for incorporating math into your sessions AND teaching that cool finger Math trick for multiplying nines in your speech room.  

Students place the cotton swab in the front of the straw and then blow it out.  It’s really fun.  You can usually get 2-3 blows per cotton swab-but then the cotton starts to loosen and they got stuck in the straws I purchased.

Here are some ideas for using this game in therapy:

• Reinforcing game-students have to say the number of points based on what bucket they get it in.  If they don’t get it in a bucket, they have to say the word or answer 10 questions.
• Simple points game-add up the points to see who wins
• Receptive identification.  Put picture cards on the opposite ends of the table or room.  The student has to blow the dart at the correct picture.

I hope you enjoy this activity and have a great Valentine’s Day!