PE Game - Hide and Seek Valentine Hearts

Here is a fun, easy Valentine game I created to play with my elementary classes.  This is a great game for special education students as well.  For a printable of this game, please click "Hide and Seek Valentine Hearts".

A St. Patrick's Day version of this game is called "Hide and Seek Shamrocks".  This game is also found on my blog here.   You may also visit my web page for many more games!

Video of this game:

Another dollar store purchase!

Hide and Seek Valentine Heart Relay

Equipment Needed:
5 buckets or boxes (one for each team)
75 + Valentine Hearts (I use plastic hearts from the dollar store, but you could use paper hearts that are laminated)
20 + cones or domes  (I like these domes the best)

Intro:
Take 30 seconds to talk about Valentine’s Day.....why we celebrate, what we do on Valentine’s Day, etc.  Then tell the students they are going to pretend to be CUPID, and they have to FIND the Valentines Hearts that are hiding in the gym!

Description of Activity:
This is a continuous relay race that keeps going until all of the hearts have been collected.  I use the width of the gym and make groups of 3-4 students.  Give each group a bucket to leave by the side wall to collect their hearts.  Students take turns running to find a heart.  When they lift up a dome to peek, they should put it back down to hide any remaining hearts.

Set-Up:
Using the width of the gym, set a bucket near the wall for each group.  On the other side wall, scatter the cones/domes and hide hearts under them.  Hide about 5 under each dome.  

Rules:
Students must wait their turn to run (groups of 3 are best so kids are not standing in line too long).  When it’s their turn, the student runs to the other side of the gym, peeks under a dome and takes ONE heart, then run back to their team’s bucket to drop it in.  Then the student gets back in line for another turn to run.   If a dome is EMPTY, the student may flip it over so other students don’t continue to look under that dome.  

Peek under a dome to find heart!

Notes:
When all of the hearts are collected, groups may count their hearts, or sort them by color, size, etc if you are using a variety of different hearts.  (see my pictures on my blog).  They may also count how many total hearts their team collected.  Have students hide hearts for the next class (tell them how many to put under each dome so you don’t have many empty and others with too many).  

You could also substitute skipping, galloping, crab walk, riding scooters, etc. instead of running. 

These are the domes with 4-5 hearts hidden under each one.