We love holidays so of course we are celebrating Valentine’s Day! The girls made Valentines for their friends and yesterday we hosted a party for our playgroup. In addition to some crafts, we also practiced our letters and counting with some fun Valentine-themed activities.
Skills: art, letter recognition, counting
Prep: Medium
Supplies: Cardstock, stickers, foamies of hearts, pipe cleaners, construction paper, felt, file folder for game
Valentine Boxes Craft
On the last column which also has the small folded piece along it’s edge, you need to cut into that small folded piece so that it meets where you will fold the flap down. This will allow you to fold and tape the flap while not messing up the folded edge.
Valentine Craft
We actually made these cute little Valentine people at the art class we attend through our Parks & Rec department. They are super easy, just glueing different size hearts together to make a person. We used paper clasps on the arms so they would twist and move. And our art teacher hung them with elastic cord instead of a regular ribbon so that the kids could make them bounce.
Making Valentines
Of course we made Valentines. When it comes to doing Valentines, I prefer the girls to make their own, especially at this age when they can’t write their names so there isn’t much for them to do with the store-bought ones. But they have to be something easy to do since we make quite a few. This year, I cut hearts out of pink cardstock (I used my cricut which makes life much easier). Then Mia and Zoe decorated the hearts with stickers, foamies, and crayons. They weren’t really into it at first so I showed the girls pictures of Valentines from some of the books we had been reading. As soon as they looked at Fancy Nancy’s Valentines they got right to work making their own. (Here’s Mia giving me a cheesy smile while making Valentines). It was so cute to watch them pass them out at their playgroup party!
Learning Activities
We also did this really easy felt board story from A Child’s Place. I just cut a bunch of hearts out of felt and wrote little Valentine messages on them.
Valentines, valentines, how many do I see?
Valentines, valentines, count them with me.
I have a red one, orange one, yellow one too.
I have a green one, purple one, and one that is blue.
I have a pink one, brown one, and one that is white.
And one last valentine as black as the night
Valentines, valentines, how many do I see?
Valentines, valentines, Count them with me!
Count them once, then we’ll count them again!
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
Valentine’s Books
Here are some of our favorite books to read about Valentine’s Day this year. They really helped the girls get the idea of the holiday–showing those in your life that you appreciate them.
This book has a small amount of text and you really need to look at the cute pictures to appreciate the story. It tells the story of a girl who collects hearts that rain down and uses them to make Valentines specific to each of her animal friends.
This is one of my favorite books! Gilbert needs to write nice poems for everyone in his class but instead he chooses to write mean poems to two kids who have been mean to him with consequences for the whole class. This is a longer story that really teaches them to see things from others’ point of view.