Valentine's day magnets

Materials: Small Wooden hearts (or hearts cut out of cardboard), paint (red, white, or pink), sharpie, glitter, magnet (usually you can buy this in a roll at Michaels by kids craft stuff)

Directions: Have your child paint the wooden heart. Allow heart to dry and then decorate as you wish. Use your sharpie to write message on the heart. Attach magnet to the back.

Spinoff idea: You could also make these into conversation hearts and use different pastel paints to paint them. :)

Love bugs

Materials: White construction paper, black construction paper, sharpie, wiggle eyes, red marker crayon or paint
Directions. Cut 2 heart shapes- 1 out of white paper, 1 smaller heart out of black paper. Cut 6 legs out of black construction paper. Have your child either paint or color the white heart red. Glue pieces together as shown above (or have your child glue them if it is age appropriate). Using your sharpie add heart shaped spots to your love bug. I wrote the message "Happy Valentine's Day! You're my lovebug!"

Elliot made this one pictured for his "lovebug" Ruby. :)

Homemade Valentines

One of the things we will definitely be doing starting tomorrow is making our own valentines. My plan is to cut heart shaped valentines for my son to paint or color. Older kids can get very creative making them! You can use sequins, stickers, glitter, stamps and tons of other things!! Another really fun idea is to have your child help you write a message to a loved one. Here is a link to a writing sheet that says "I love you because...". It's a heart shape, so you could have your child make their creative valentine and then cut this heart shaped stationary page out and glue it to the back. What a great thing for a grandma, grandpa, daddy or friend! And what a great way to teach your child to appreciate their family and friends and learn to express that love in words!!

February 9-13: Valentines, Hearts and Love

This week is all about L-O-V-E. :) As Valentines comes this weekend, we will be talking all about love and valentines day. Obviously a great time to also add emphasis to the heart shape and color red (or pink!).

Books: Where Is Baby's Valentine by Karen Katz, Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boyton, How Do I Love You by Leslie Kimmelman, The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn, Froggy's First Kiss by Jonathan London

Song: Although I actually very much dislike the big purple dinosaur (and my son has never seen this show) my selection is the Barney Song. Because it's lyrics are simple, and kids seem to love it and I think it conveys the idea of "love", especially from a family perspective (which is what we want to teach our children on valentine's day!).
Lyrics:
I love you
You love me
We're a happy family
With a great big hug
And a kiss from me to you
Won't you say you love me too?

Art/Craft Activities this week:
Heart Collage, Handprint heart, Making Valentine's Cards, Heart Wreath, Love Bugs, Plaster Hand print

Helpful sites:

Heart Shaped Pattern
Chocolate Play-doh recipe
Valentines Matching Flip Book- really cute make at home book that helps your child with matching skills and colors
Valentines Numbers-This is intended to be used for making a card. But I thought you could creatively use the numbers for different activities. One thing I thought of for older kids would be cutting the nubers out and having the kids count out and put that number of conversation hearts onto the correct cards. At the end they could have them for a treat. :)

If anyone has other ideas about this theme or any theme or if you did something differently, please always feel free to leave a comment! Any other ideas are welcomed!