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!

Polar Bear Craft

Materials: Brown paper bag, sharpie, wiggle eyes, felt, pom pom, white paint
Directions: Cut out a bear face shape. Have your child paint it white. Add the details of your bears face or have your older child do it themself. You can use the items I listed or whatever you have around. :)


Ps... I will try to post pictures of my penguin crafts tomorrow. My husband went out of town on short notice, so I haven't had as much posting time. I promise I'll be better this week!

Create your own snack mix

This morning I decided we would make a snack mix. We use to do this a lot in my classroom (either based on our theme or just to have fun and get rid of odds and ends). This morning I used cinnamon chex, cheerios, pretzel sticks, raisins, bunny graham crackers, and chocolate peanutbutter swirled chips. You can use anything you have around. Ideas: goldfish crackers, puffs, marshmallows, m&ms, cereal of any kind, craisins, etc. Basically any bite sized muchy you have around your house. This is really fun for kids, because they can use a 1 cup or 1/2 cup to scoop out the ingredients and put them into a big ziplock. Seal, shake and enjoy. Yum, yum!

Ps... Also a good way to teach older kids about measuring tools if you use measuring cups!

Happy Birthday Elmo!

Today is our furry red friend's birthday! I planned on using this coloring page (Elmo Coloring page) of Elmo's face to make a paint project for my little guy! I was going to cut it out and use it to trace Elmo's face onto a paper bag and have my guy paint it red. Then make the eyes out of white paper. However, I've been sick for a few days now so we haven't done much project wise. We might do this one tomorrow if I feel better. If so I'll add photos. Let me know if any of you do it. Comment or email me a photo. :)

Mitten Matching Game

This is a simple and easy to make game that will help your child with color identification and one to one correspondence (which is an important early math skill). You can make many versions of this game to go with different themes. I went with mittens since it goes with the themes we've been exploring in our house.

Materials: Construction paper of various colors, sharpie, glue stick, and contact paper (optional)

Directions: Cut out 2 mittens for each color. Glue one mitten down to the "mat" (which I used black construction paper for). Write the color name on the other mitten. It's really good for young kids to have things labeled with print, even if they cannot read it yet. I would recommend laminating this or using contact paper to cover it. It will protect your pieces from getting ruined.

Happy Groundhog's Day!

Toilet Paper Roll Groundhog
Groundhog coloring page
Create your own groundhog report

This is a fun day for older kids. Take your child's prediction of whether or not the groundhog will see its shadow. It's also a great day to explore shadows!

Shadow Activity: Use a flashlight to cast your child's shadow on the wall. Have them sit with so you can cast a shadow of their profile onto a piece of white paper. Trace the profile shadow. Attach to a black piece of black construction paper to cut out the "shadow" (basically you are just using your traced profile as a stencil). Here is another method from Wondertime that doesn't require a lot of involvement from your child (you could make as a keepsake of your toddler). But I'd recommend the first method for older kids to help them learn more about shadows.