Preschool Valentine's Day Crafts

Sometimes it is nice to take a day off from the mundane activities and make a day special, like Valentine's Day. When I owned a child care center, we had to come up with new ideas for children's activities every day, but holiday activities always seemed more fun. Here are a few ideas that might put a little fun in your life (or make you crazy).

• Print painting is an easy way to use paint with your young child. Print hearts (or anything) using cookie cutters. No cookie cutters? Buy a cheap sponge and cut it into the shape of a heart. Dip the flat side of the cookie cutter or one side of the damp sponge into paint, then, stamp it onto the paper.

• Older children can use the cookie cutter to trace hearts using a marker or crayon or colored pencils or paint brush.

• Hearts are easy to make. Fold a piece of paper in half, then, cut half a heart against the fold. The fold should be in the middle of your heart when you open it, and both sides will be even. You may need to draw the heart for your 4 or 5 year old to cut.
• Using different colors of paper cut out different sizes of hearts and layer them on top of each other, gluing them, for a fancy design.
• If you have any empty picture frames available, frame your child's creative art work. With parent permission your older children may want to paint the picture frame first.
• Valentine's Day and love notes go together. Help your child make a cute card for a parent, grandparent, friend, or neighbor. It can be as simple as folding a piece of construction paper in half, then drawing with crayon or marker. Or, it can be more elaborate like adding fabric, flowers, hearts, words, or yarn. Be creative!

• Another good card idea would be to make two 1/2 sheet valentines of card stock paper or heavy construction paper, then set them sideways with tips together. Slide one valentine about 1/3 of the way under the other from the tips, so that the circles look like butterfly wings. Glue the wings together. Glue a popsicle stick in the middle to make the body of the butterfly. Or, punch two holes, near the top and bottom in the center of the connection, where the butterfly body would go. Then, insert a lollypop through the holes to form the body. Decorate your butterfly!

• A Valentine card box to store Valentines received is always fun. Shoe boxes work especially well for this project. Using construction paper, cover the box and lid with paper, then decorate. If your toddler isn't in school yet, tell friends and relatives about the box and desire to fill it with cards. Still have no one to fill it? You could step in by offering cards from your child's stuffed animal friends. Or, use the box for small toy storage.

• This is a good project for a 4 or 5 year old or older. Take two pieces of colored card stock paper or heavy construction paper, set of top of each other, and fold in half. Cut out two identical hearts. Keeping both hearts together, punch holes around the outer edge of the paper, about an inch apart, with a paper hole punch, except for a section across the top. Take a long string of yarn and weave it through the holes around the heart. (This can be done without using a needle.)  The excess yarn at the top can be tied together for carrying the heart envelope. Color or decorate your heart envelope.

 What better way to end your preschool Valentine's Day crafts session than with sweets? Making cookies or cupcakes with lots of sprinkles is a great, easy way to spend time bonding with your child and a great way to end a day of crafts.

Have a great Valentine's Day!