The festival is meant to honor Faunus, who was the Roman god of agriculture and, by extension, fertility. Medieval love rituals took place in the middle of February, since it was believed the birds began their mating season in early spring.

Valentine’s Day brings the promise of heartfelt greeting cards addressed to that special someone and candies with cute sayings printed on them. Valentine’s Day isn’t just about romance, of course. It should also be about showing appreciation to those we love: family, friends, and neighbors.

Valentine’s Day is often a big craft day in school. Teachers may ask the students to make a mailbox in which to place their valentines, but there can be a problem with passing valentines out in the classroom.

If a child is left off of the valentine’s list, there might be hurt feelings. Find out if your child’s classroom has plans for the celebrating holiday. Some classrooms insist that if a child is planning to pass out cards, she must distribute them to the entire class to avoid hurt feelings.

Family Education says that giving everyone a gift on Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity to teach children about tolerance and having respect for others. Your child might not be a friend with the entire class, but that’s not a reason to leave them out of a gesture of good will.

Family Education has some other excellent tips for informing your child about Valentine’s Day, including discussing what the holiday means to you, setting aside enough time to help your child with creating cards for the entire class, and making sure your expression of love supercedes the need for gifts.

If your child wishes to distribute cards to his or her classmates, you must decide whether the valentines should be store-bought or hand made. Crafting unique Valentine’s Day cards could get expensive but a hand made card is a real treasure.

Kids Domain puts together a list of things you’ll need to craft your own cards. Gather up construction paper or card stock, heart stickers, glue, and glitter and let your imagination run free!

An alternative to passing out valentines to every child is to give each child a small, crafted gift. FamilyFun.com has a great idea for lollipop flowers. They’re sweet, very affordable, and very simple to create! All you need is a bagful of lollipops, scissors, red and green construction paper, and a glue stick. Cut heart shapes out of the red construction paper and leaf shapes out of the green paper. Then attach these pieces to the lollipop to transform it into a flower! Such an easy and cute gift!

For something a little more substantial but still easy to make, check out these crispy treat sweet hearts. Make rice crispy treat mix according to the recipe on the cereal box and use a specially shaped cookie cutter to form these hearts. Wrap each heart in a plastic bag, tie it off with a ribbon, and you’ll have a great Valentine’s Day gift!

A child can also make small, inexpensive keepsakes that don’t necessarily require the use of candy. My favorite from Family Fun’s website is the Pencil Topper. Cut heart shapes out of craft foam and use pipe cleaners to attach them to the tops of pencils. The result is a sweet favor that resembles a tiny, colorful, conversation heart.

Love is a powerful positive force in the world, and this is the holiday to commemorate it. Even a small gift can mean a lot, and a little more love is always welcome. Happy Valentine’s Day!