Valentine's Day for Preschoolers - Part 1

How was your Valentine's Day? Is it even celebrated in your part of the world? I know American and Canadian stores always have beautiful pink and red display of roses, boxes of chocolates and cuddly teddy bears on their shelf but in Europe, it is not so much the case; at least not over here in Germany. Valentine's Day is "observed" but not "commercial". As such, finding little trinkets for school was quite difficult. I would usually head over to a "dollar store" to pick up small items to count, sort and tweeze but no such luck this year. *sigh* Anyhow, here's a look at what we did this year in our Valentine's Day Unit...

Revealing Hearts & Watercolors

If you haven't tried anything like this before, you totally should. Adrian LOVED making words appear with watercolors. I shaped these papers like hearts for Valentine's Day but it could be done for any time of year of course. First, write down with a white pencil a word on a white paper and then bring out your watercolors (We used Crayola's Washable watercolors). While being painted, the word will "magically" start appearing. After it had appeared, Id' asked Adrian to read it and act it out. He was  able to read about half the words and I helped him read the other half. Overall, a big hit. Original idea to b credited to BHG.

Valentine's Day Number 1-30 Bingo

Who doesn't like Bingo? And how cute is this tray? I found these pre-made cards on The Idea Room. You can also customize the cards by printing blank ones if you need higher numbers or letters. For chips, we used some Valentine's Day candies I found at the grocery store.

Making Chocolate Truffles with Playdough

You have no idea how fast I ate those so I could have an empty box of Valentine's Day chocolates for this activity! :) I just love to have Adrian do playdough activities and couldn't resist this one. Adrian still has trouble (lack of motivation?) making playdough balls but I thought this empty box of chocolate and chocolate colored and smelling dough might make it fun (Tutti Frutti brand makes lots of GREAT smelling dough...vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, etc.). Unfortunately, it didn't. These perfect little truffles were all made by me. :( Ugh...

Tweezing Fake Rose Petals

I once bought a small bag of fake rose petals to take pictures of a tiny little baby Adrian. Remembering I had that bag, I pulled it out and poured 20 petals in a heart-shaped baking pan. With a pair of tweezer, Adrian was all set to tweeze the rose petals into another bowl (not pictured).

Lacing a Heart

Lacing is always a popular activity here. This time I asked Adrian to lace over instead of over and under. We also used a ribbon instead of a shoelace. 

Matching Cards + Using Heart Paperclips

Remember making heart shaped paperclips from regular paperclips? I somehow remembered doing that while brainstorming about Valentine's Day and decided to have Adrian paperclip matching cards with heart shaped paperclips. (Now if I could only have found red ones!) It was a bit more difficult finding the opening but at the same time, the opening is wider making it easier to insert the pair of cards. The cards were printed from a pack made by Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations.

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Happy Valentine's Day Belated from Adrian (photo dated 2009)

This post was shared at Montessori Monday, Tuesday Tots, Moms' Library, We Made That Wednesday, the Weekly's Kids Coop, Show-and-Share Saturday, Sunday Showcase, Link & Learn, Share it Saturday and Preschool &Kindergarten Community.