Happy Thursday!
Valentine’s Day will be here next week and I have all kinds of fun ideas you can do with your students or kids at home. These are all activities I have done with my preschool kiddos and they loved them!
Any time we do activities and crafts for holidays the kids seem to get more excited. We typically spend a whole week or more working on these.
First, here is a list of the books we enjoy reading. I purchased most of them from Amazon.
Valentines Are for Saying I Love You by Margaret Sutherland
Today is Valentine’s Day! by P.K. Hallinan
Happy Valentine’s Day, Little Critter! by Mercer Mayer
There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Rose! by Lucille Colandro
The Biggest Valentine Ever by Steven Kroll
Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink by Diane deGroat
Henry and The Valentine Surprise by Nancy Carlson
Now for the activities…
– Reading/Literacy Activities –
Spell Valentine’s Day Words
Using Melissa & Doug Alphabet Magnets, the kids spelled different words related to Valentine’s Day. The words we spelled were: red, pink, heart, valentine, day, love, card, candy, rose and cupid. I wrote each word on a piece of strip paper.
Consonant Vowel Consonant (CVC) Heart Match Puzzles
I found this FREE activity at Mrs. Ricca’s Kindergarten TPT store. It is included in her Valentine’s Day Math & Literacy Centers pack. If you aren’t already a member of Teachers Pay Teachers you can sign up for free and then download the PDF file to your computer.
Alphabet Sound Puzzles
This activity is also included in the FREE Valentine’s Day Math & Literacy Centers pack from Mrs. Ricca’s Kindergarten TPT store.
Sight Word Activity
I wrote 20 sight words on small individual hearts and put them in a bowl. I gave the kids a piece of paper with 20 blank hearts printed on it. Each child took turns picking out a heart and reading the word on the heart. Then they wrote the word in one of the hearts on their paper.
Color By Sight Word
A fun Valentine’s Day activity where students follow a key and color the correct sight words. You can find this FREE printable HERE.
– Math Activities –
Hearts Count & Match
I made this cute activity by printing blank medium-sized hearts on red card stock paper and small hearts on pink card stock. I wrote numbers 0 – 20 on the small pink hearts and then used a heart stamp to make 0 – 20 heart stamps on the medium red hearts. Then I laminated the pages, cut the hearts out and this activity was ready go.
The next two activities are both included in the FREE Valentine’s Day Math & Literacy pack from Mrs. Ricca’s Kindergarten TPT store.
Candy Heart Patterns
Candy Heart Count & Graph
How Many Conversation Hearts Will Fit?
I created this worksheet for my kiddos. You can find the heart border HERE to make one similar.
Picture Frame Patterns
I printed out small blank puzzles and cut out the center. FYI – I only had to make a few of these and it took a really long time to do! I’d recommend buying a pack of blank puzzles from Michael’s or Amazon, remove the center pieces and let the kids color and put those together instead. That is definitely what I will be doing next time. 🙂
After the kids designed the picture frame, I took pictures of them holding a “Happy Valentine’s Day” sign for their family that they signed with their name. We glued the picture to the back of the frame. They turned out really cute and the parents loved them.
Measurement Activity
I found this FREE activity at United Teaching’s TPT store.
Measuring w/ Heart Cut-Outs
I cut out a bunch of medium-sized hearts and had the kids take turns measuring how many hearts long they were. Another way we’ve done this in the past is tape the hearts up on the wall and have the kids stand next to the line of hearts. This is a great arrival activity too! It’s a nice visual for the kids and they love seeing how tall everyone is.
– Science/Art/Other Miscellaneous Activities –
Heart Stamps
This is a simple and fun activity. Use hearts stamps to stamp different colored (and designed) hearts on a larger cut-out heart.
Fizzy Hearts Science Experiment
We made these fizzy hearts with baking soda and the kids had a blast squirting vinegar on them and watching them dissolve before their eyes.
To make these you will need:
– baking soda
– water
– red food coloring
– silicone mold (I used a heart shaped one that I found on Amazon)
Directions:
Pour a good amount of baking soda into a bowl – it really depends on how many hearts you want to make and how big your mold is. Slowly add water and mix until you have a paste consistency. Add more baking soda or water if needed. Then dump the mixture into your mold and put it in the freezer overnight.
When you’re ready to do the experiment, pop the hearts out of the mold and put them into a container of some kind (these will dissolve and get messy). Then put vinegar into a squeeze bottle (I found mine at Michael’s in the baking section) and let the kids go to town squirting the vinegar on the hearts. The kids LOVED this activity!
Candy Heart Science Experiment
For this experiment, we put candy hearts in three different cups: (1) plain water, (2) water & baking soda and (3) water & lemon. We observed each cup throughout our day to see which heart(s) would dissolve first.
LOVE Painting
Using a large piece of white construction paper, I used painters tape to spell out the word LOVE and then let the kids paint all over the paper. We carefully peeled up the tape after it dried.
Fun w/ Dough
This is a great arrival activity. We practiced rolling out dough into ropes and making different sized hearts. They used heart-shaped cookie cutters and made valentine related words out of dough.
Heart Cut-Out Designs
I gave the kids a piece of pink or red 9 x 12 inch construction paper and walked them through folding their paper in half, drawing half of a heart on the folded end of the paper and then cutting it out. They were very excited when they opened up their paper to reveal a full-size heart. Then they designed their hearts using crayons, markers and stickers.
I hope you and your kiddos enjoy these Valentine’s Day activities as much as we did!
What are some other fun activities you do with your kiddos for Valentine’s Day?