Candy Conversation Hearts, commonly available near to Valentine’s Day, have been around for close to 150 years. In this youth idea, you’ll get several games to play using the candy hearts as well as ideas to use the messages written on the hearts to tell about God’s Love.

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What You Need

• A lot of candy hearts

A Brief History

An american named Oliver Chase invented a candy machine that cut candy lozenges in 1847 and 3 years later a machine to pulverise sugar to make the candy. Then in 1866 his brother, Daniel Chase invented a machine to press food dye letters onto the hearts and other shapes to create short messages. They were first shared at weddings, birthday parties, and other celebrations, but over the years became synonymous with Valentine’s Day.

Games using Candy Conversation Hearts

• Valentine’s Candy Hearts Toss: Place some saucers on top of cups to elevate them at different heights. You may also designate different saucers as having higher point values than others. The youth are given 5 heart candies, and from a designated distance, must toss the candy hearts onto the saucer. Highest score wins.
• Candy Hearts Pick Up: The youth or who transfers the most hearts from the saucer to a bowl in one minute, using only chopsticks wins the game. Variation: Instead of chopsticks youth must create suction through a straw to transfer the hearts.
• Conversational Hearts Story Game: Youth are given 10-12 candy hearts with various messages and must use them to create a story of God’s love for us. Variation: allow any story and award prizes for the most serious, the most mushy, the grossest, the funniest and the silliest stories.
• Candy Hearts Icebreaker: Fill a bowl with Candy hearts and pass it around the group. Each youth takes as much or as little candy as they want. Make sure that no one eats their candy right away. For each candy heart they take, they have to share one fact about themselves. To make it a little more interesting, assign something specific for each color: favorite hobby, food, song, place to visit, most embarrassing moment, greatest fear, etc.
• Heart Match: Separate several boxes of conversation hearts into pairs of identical words / colors. Give each youth one as he/she arrives. They must mingle and pair up with the person who has the same phrase, but cannot speak any of the words on the heart in the search to find their partner.
• Candy Heart Charades: Play a game of charades using candy conversation hearts as the messages.
• Valentine Heart Tower: Have a competition to see who can make the tallest tower of candy hearts, by stacking them one on top of the other. When the time runs out, the team with the tallest standing tower is awarded a prize.

Candy Heart Messages
Over the years, the hearts have contained a variety of creative and touching ways to say “I love you.” They rotate the saying from year to year as well as add new ones.

Some of the more well known ones are:
I Love You, Be Mine, Call Me, Cupid, Dream, Flirt, Friend 4Ever, Heart Throb, I Do, Love Me, Miss You, Soul Mate, Too Cool

They’ve also used:
All Mine, Amore, Angel, Ask Me, Awesome, Be Good, Be My Hero, Be My Icon, Be True, Cool, Cutie Pie, Dear, Dear One, Dig Me, Dream On, Email Me, Fax Me, First Kiss, For You, Get Real, Girl Power, Go Girl, Go Home, Got Love, Heart Of Gold, Hello, Love, Home Sick, Honey Bun, How Sweet, Hug Me, I Heart You, I Hope, I Will, I Wish, I’m Sure, I’m Yours, It’s Love, It’s True, Kiss Me, Let’s Kiss, LOL, Love, Love Ya, Love You, Lover Boy, Marry Me, Miss Me, Moon Beam, My Baby, My Girl, My Hero, My Love, My Man, My Pal, Neat, New Love, Nice Girl, Oh Boy, One I Love, Only You, Page Me, Real Love, Rising Star, Sexy Baby, Smile, So Fine, Sure Dear, Sure Love, Sweet Talk, Thank You, TLC, Too Hot, Too Sweet, True Love, Ura Star, Ura10, Venus, What Ever, Why Not, Yes Dear, You + Me?, You Bet, You Rule, You’re Tops

TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Discussion

• What 1 to 3 word message would you put on candy hearts if you had a chance?

MAKE IT SPIRITUAL

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” – Jeremiah 31:33

• BE MINE – God wants us to accept His love; God calls us to be His. James 1:18; Isaiah 43:1; John 3:16; John 10:27-30; Exodus 19:5-6; Deuteronomy 7:6; Romans 8:38-39; Romans 8:28
• TRUE LOVE – God loves us with true love – unconditional love. Jeremiah 31:3; 1 John 3:1; 1 John 3:16; Romans 5:8; Lamentations 3:22-25
• LOVE ME – God wants us to love Him. Luke 10:27; 1 John 4:7-12
• SWEET TALK – God’s Word is His love letter to us. Psalm 119:103
• CALL ME – God wants us to communicate with Him. Jeremiah 33:3

MAKE IT PRACTICAL

• What words are written on people’s hearts? How do words get written on our hearts?
• What 1 to 3 word messages do you believe God would want to write on a person’s heart?
• If a person had the words of God written on their hearts, how would it change them? How would it change their thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions?

MAKE IT PERSONAL

• If you were to describe your own heart in 1 to 3 words what words would characterise your heart?
• What will the keywords will you choose to be on your heart this week as you reveal your heart to God? to others? In your family? In school?

OTHER SCRIPTURE VERSES

• James 1:18 (NLT)  – “He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.”
• 2 Chronicles 17:4 (NIV) – “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
• Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV) – “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”
• Jeremiah 31:33 (NIV) – “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
• Proverbs 3:3 – “Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.”

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