Skip to main content

Around Our Schoolroom: Valentine's Day


This unit came together pretty easily. I picked up a few fun heart things (toothpicks and jewels) at Dollar Tree, that I then added to some activities we've done before. If you are still trying to get children to master a skill sometimes simply changing a few of the materials makes the activity exciting again. 

Language -

matching lower case letter hearts to the correct upper case letter carton
the hearts are plaster-of-paris poured in to a silicone heart tray. the egg carton was 
originally made for matchingletter buttons and has also been used for letter easter egg matching

filling in letters with heart jewels
*the cards are from, early learning activities. i printed two per page so they'd be a bit smaller.

My youngest two enjoy using these cards to practice spelling their names.


sorting hearts

pushing heart toothpicks in to the matching color
i used sharpies to color the styrofoam, toothpicks are from dollar tree

Even though this is pretty simple activity it had been a huge hit with all the kids - they seem to enjoy pouching the toothpicks through the styrofoam. 


Math - 

heart sudoko
the hearts are from dollar tree

heart puzzles
puzzles are cut from scrapbook paper with magnets on the back

heart puzzles -  matching numbers to the correct numerals.
numbers range from 1-20 and then tens from 10-100
i have made the pdf available here

counting with hearts & matching the correct numerals
paper is scrapbook paper punched with a heart puncher. the hearts are from dollar tree

Creativity/Sensory - 

additions to our art cart: red/pink paint chips, heart puncher, glitter hearts, heart crayons,
heart and letter stamps, pink and purple ink pads, washi tape. 
*these materials are available for the kids to use at anytime/anyway they wish. you can view our art cart and schoolroom here
strawberry jello play-dough with heart and letter cookie cutters 

melissa and doug heart bead kit.
 in addition to the children designing there own necklaces, we've also used these
 to work on patterns. 

If you are looking for more Valentine/heart ideas be sure to check out our Fairy Tale Unit. You can also find more units and crafts on our homeschool page.

Lots more great kid friendly ideas can also be found at these link parties: Link and Learn, Weekly Kid Co-op, Montessori Monday, Hip Homeschool Hop, Preschool Corner, For the Kids Fridays, and Show and Share Saturday. 
Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 17, 2014 at 6:03 AM

    Great selection of Valentine's Day activities. We had some similar ones this year and last year.The heart sudoku is really neat! :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment - you make me smile :)

Popular posts from this blog

A Little Red Cardboard Barn

We've finished our farm unit and are moving on to a new theme tomorrow - but before we do I wanted share the barn we made. The wooden farm animals came with a beautiful handmade ark that we gave Big Buddy for Christmas a couple years ago.  I would someday love to have a wood barn but it's currently not in the budget. So in the mean time we decided to improvise and make our own.  I stumbled upon this perfectly sized milk box (4 gallons per box) while subbing and thought it would be sturdy enough to handle play. Hubandie and the boys used an x-acto knife and wood glue to build a barn shape. to get the doors to fold out hubandie used an x-acto knife and scored the inside of the cardboard We then painted with a basic primer and outlined a window and a door with painters tape. cardboard is very porous so priming is a must if you want decent coverage Big Buddy however insisted that we add more windows so it...
140 comments
This post is a long one, click thru to see more »

Preschool Syllabus: Dr. Seuss

Normally I'd do a Dr. Seuss unit in March around his birthday. We had to do one now though because on Saturday Big Buddy and I going on a date to a  Dr. Seuss exhibit . The exhibit is only at the museum until January and I'm afraid if we don't go now we might not get the chance. We are of course reading lots of Dr. Seuss's books. A great advatage to studying Dr. Seuss in November rather than March is that all his books were available at the library. I also found a great children's biography which is perfect for preschoolers. Pebble First Biographies: Dr. Seuss  We've read it a couple times and Big Buddy loves reciting all the facts he's learned WRITING CENTER ADDITIONS big buddy's name in sand paper letters, coloring pages  & mazes from seussville.com skills practiced: fine motor, letter recognition, creativity,  reading comprehension LEARNING "TRAYS" -   I rotate these, setting out about four a day from which the boy...
131 comments
This post is a long one, click thru to see more »

Jack-O-Lanterns on the Fridge

Last fall I saw the idea for refrigerator pumpkins with face pieces in FamilyFun Magazine  and have been anxious to recreate them ever since. It was pretty quick and easy and since the only thing we didn't have on hand was magnetic sheets ($1.50 with coupon at Joann's) it was also very cheap. my supplies: magnetic sheets, orange & black construction paper, white pen, tacky glue *i know they have self adhesive sheets but my Joann's didn't carry them   glued (very messily) and ready to cut Both the boys were quite enthused when they discovered them after rest time :) Hopefully it will keep them entertained until we carve real pumpkins. 
249 comments
This post is a long one, click thru to see more »