Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and we believe this holiday is a great opportunity to celebrate love and show appreciation for the important people in our lives. One thing we love about Valentine’s Day at The Learning Tree is that Valentine’s Day is not only a fun and loving holiday, but is a great learning experience for the children. When children are making a gift or craft for someone they love, this is a great chance to build the children’s social emotional skills, language skills, literacy skills, and more. Talking about things you appreciate in each person is a great way to build strong relationships!
We will be having Valentine’s Day celebrations at The Learning Tree on Valentine’s this day with our LT children, but we thought we could give you some ideas of different activities you can do at home to get into the Valentine’s Day spirit together as a family. Let’s take a look at a few crafts and activities to do at home:
Shake Painted Valentine
Materials: plastic food container, some punched hearts (or cut out from construction paper), a piece of card stock, glue and paint of your choosing.
How to create your project:
- Punch out some hearts from construction paper
- Place them and paint in the food container
- Put the top on and shake
- Open and be amazed!
- Fold the card stock and add glue
- Add hearts to glue and let dry
Now enjoy your beautiful project and new decoration for your home!
Bead Heart Wands
Materials: you will need a wood dowel, pipe cleaner, and tri-beads of your choice of color. You can also use glue and a bead tray if you would like!
How to create your project:
- Start by threading the beads on the pipe cleaner and design it however you may choose
- When all the beads are on, bend it into a heart and twist the ends together snuggly
Now it’s time to enjoy your new heart wand!
Puffy Heart Wreath
Materials: you will need a paper plate, glue, foam heart picks, red markers and scissors
How to create your project:
- Start by coloring the paper plate with markers.
- Now pull the tops off the heart picks
- Cut the middle of the paper plate out
- Add a lot of glue to your paper plate!
- Now its time to add your hearts onto your wreath however you may choose
- Let your puffy heart wreath dry
Once it is dry, your creation is complete and now its time to have fun decorating your home!
Heart Bird Feeders
Materials: bird seed, gelatine, heart shaped cookie cutters or a silicon mold, and string
How to create your bird feeders:
- Mix together bird seed and gelatine
- Add your mixture to your silicon mold or use your cookie cutters to cut your heart shaped
- Add a piece of string to each of your heart shaped molds
- Place your molds into the freezer for 3-4 hours.
Now it’s time to take your heart shaped bird feeders outside and have some fun!
We hope these four activities are something fun for you and your family to do at home together to get into the LOVING Valentine’s Day spirit!