Age 2-3 years
I love my heart paper punch and my kids do too. It’s fun to make hearts for Valentine’s Day Crafts but you can also use them for math, write letters on them and play match.. the variations are endless. These three activities are just a few of the ways we have used punched out paper hearts lately.
Shake Painted Valentine
I love painting in new ways and this was a great craft for my 19 month old who as you can see even helps me make a mess with a low mess activity like this. For another version of Valentine shake painting check out Hands On As We Grow- older kids will dig how they did it for sure!
- Gather your materials. You will need a plastic food container, some punched hearts( or cut out from construction paper), a piece of card stock, glue and paint of your choosing.
- Punch out some hearts from construction paper.
- Place them and paint in the food container.
It’s easier to put the paint in first, they shake better that way. If you are nuts enough to hand your toddler the bottle of paint like I was be ready with a washcloth or my favorite- wipes.
- Put the top on and shake.
- Open and be amazed!
- Fold the card stock and add glue .
- Add hearts to glue and let dry.
After seeing how cool the hearts looked someone else wanted in on the fun. 
Heart Patterns
Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to only be about arts and crafts, we love math and made this super easy patterning activity.
- Gather your materials. You will need your paper hearts, a cookie sheet ( check out the dollar store), some double stick tape , a paper cup and a sheet of construction paper.
- Start by taping the paper down on the cookie sheet and adding double stick tape to the hearts.
- Make some simple patterns. I like to start simple then slip a harder one or two in before getting easier again. I want my son to feel successful but challenged.
- Place the extra in a cup . I make sure there aren’t too many extra hearts but that there is more than the few he needs to finish the pattern.
- Complete the patterns.
After we were done with this my daughter ( who is all about hearts right now)painted over it for a valentine for my husband. I love when we reuse tray table activities like that.
Heart Color Match
This is another easy tray activity. Using a silicone pan I placed a different color paper heart in each and had the corresponding colors in a pile waiting to be matched up. This was too hard for my daughter at 19 months and my son would be bored to tears with it. It’s smack in the middle between their abilities so no pics of their participation but I still wanted to include the idea for the older toddlers and younger preschoolers who would love it.
Heart of Hearts Collage
I made this last year over at my other blog Craftitivity Corner on FamilyEducation.com pop over to see the tutorial.
For about 3 weeks we’ve been writing on our playroom wall, well on paper attached to the wall. Both my kids, friends who have come by and even my husband and I have contributed to this on going mural. My daughter loves to write on vertical surfaces and she is just starting to point out letters in books and other print so I figures we could fill both those needs and create a cooperative project for my son and her as well.
- Gather your materials. You will need some painters tape ( don’t buy the cheap stuff, I did and it’s cheap for a reason), butcher block ( aka craft paper), marker and then the materials to decorate things like crayons, markers, stickers…
- Clear a large wall space, part of the magic of a mural is it’s size so to make a simple project like this super make it big. Hang the paper up.
- Write out the alphabet . I thought I had it spaced well but poor little z got almost no space.
- Add kids. Sometimes I ask her to find a letter and color, often I just put the crayon jar on the floor and watch.
- We added stickers . My son put them on the matching letter, and directed my daughter where to put them too. Stickers are great little fine motor exercises especially peeling them off their original sheets.
- Now every time we are in the playroom ( many times a day) someone adds something.
Not sure how long we will leave it up but for now we are having fun with it. Below is the mural today- check out all the stars on the letter S, it’s my daughter’s favorite word these days!
Alphabet Books
by Denise Fleming is a wonderful example of what an alphabet book should be. Perfect for toddlers and preschoolers learning their first letters, the text is short , the letters are front and center and the illustrations are fun and interesting. My son loves this book, I grabbed it at the library after remembering how much my Pre K class loved it too.Many alphabet books are too long to read entirety at circle time or in one shot with a toddler but this my 19 month old will sit through Z every time. {This review is from when my son was 19 months old in 2008. His love of this book was really a jumping off point for his love of letters in general. I wish I could say I taught him his letters but really reading this one particular book over and over at his request probably did the trick. }
Chicka Chicka ABC
Al Pha’s Bet
This ripped paper snowman craft was inspired by the book Snowmen At Night and my daughter’s love of ripping toilet paper into teeny tiny pieces. As annoying as that habit is as a parent it’s actually really great for her fine motor development so it never makes me too angry to see. I harnessed that in this craft and we had fun making a ” no man” together while her brother was at school.
- Gather your materials. You will need 2 sheets of construction paper( black and white), a small scrap of orange, a scrap of ribbon, googly eyes, toilet paper,glue, scissors and a white crayon.
- Start by cutting out a snowman body and moon from the white paper. If you are doing this with older children have them do the drawing or cutting or both.
- Hand your child the crayon and ask them to make stars, shooting stars or snowflakes in the sky. With little ones like my daughter who are at the labeling stage ( she is 19 months) I would keep it simple using something they are familiar with. For her she knows what stars are so I asked her to make stars in the sky and made one as an example. Then let her do what she wanted.
- While she did that I cut out a nose from the scrap paper.
- Rip the paper!
As she ripped I took some of the ripped pieces out of reach because she wanted to rip the smallest ones into teeny tiny pieces and I wanted to encourage that fine motor practice.
- Time for glue. Do not fret about where they put glue, I don’t open it all the way but make them work for it, but not so closed that they will get frustrated.
- Add the body and moon – again with older kids you may want to add arms. Tiny easy to rip pieces can be tricky for little hands so didn’t add any to this craft but do what fits best with your child’s development.
- When she added the moon she sat there squishing the glue under it for a few moments, expect play like this, welcome play like this. When we added the glue for it I narrated that the moon goes in the sky, also pointing out at the sky from the window. Use crafts as a way to teach but don’t stress about the end product.
- Add more glue for the toilet paper. With tiny ones like my daughter you might have to help add the glue for the collage, but let them do as much as they can before stepping in.
- Squish it on.
- Add the nose.
- I added the eyes and the scarf , she loves to unravel ribbon and the eyes are perfect for eating in her books. If you want the kids to do these but are still young try plain paper eyes ( many kids don’t put that in their mouths, even when they are similar in size to googly eyes, but as always watch and remember stay within arms reach when kids are at the mouthing stage). Don’t forget to hang toddler art up, my daughter is clearly proud pointing out her crafts or paintings and saying her name after pointing at them. Creating confidence is one of the best parts of crafting with kids.
Snowmen At Night
Snowmen at Night
I love this book and actually looked for 2 hours in our playroom and storage room convinced I owned it but misplaced it. I don’t. I finally sat down to read it to my daughter at her school last week. She liked the snowmen but wasn’t as into it as I suspect she will be next winter. The story is adorable but a little sophisticated for a 19 month old. My son has read it and loved it, because it taps into a child’s imagination perfectly. The author imagines a world where snowmen come to life and party at night when we are sleeping, which is why they always look a little different in the morning. I remember my son looking at me and asking ” not really right?” when we read it a few years ago. I love the whimsical illustrations with fun points of view that makes the reader feel like they are in on a real secret. Great book for preschoolers, I was a little over eager reading it with my daughter but it’s so good I couldn’t wait to.
Toddlers love digging through things. Kitchen cabinets, boxes of blocks or my daughter’s favorite the DVD drawer. I roped in that inherent desire to dig and find for this love themed Valentine’s Day Discovery Box. Besides the silk flower petals inside there are paper hearts and family photos of people she knows and loves cut into hearts. As we played I’d ask her to find someone and she would search and search until she did. Great for families like ours that are spread out, or for any that are separated due to work or deployment.
- Gather your materials. You will need a container, some silk flower petals, printed card stock, double stick tape , family photos and a heart paper punch.
- Start by punching out paper hearts. The reason you want so many is that you want the toddler to pick each up and look on both sides to see if there is a picture. If the ones without the pictures over frustrate your child remove them. This builds concentration and memory.
- Cut out your pictures and using double stick tape stick them to some of the paper hearts.
- Add them to a container with the silk flowers.
- Add a toddler. She loved finding pictures of her brother as a baby the most.
- If they get up keep playing yourself, it doesn’t mean the activity is a flop they might just want some goggles… I had a hard time not laughing hysterically when she put the goggles on. She was happy and moved the box to the floor so maybe she was just more comfortable on the floor. I ran with it.
- Label things as you go but don’t interrupt too much, be there to help along not to direct.
My Toddler’s Favorite Valentine’s Day Book
Where Is Baby’s Valentine?: A Lift-the-Flap Book
I can’t tell you how many times I have read this book since I brought it out of storage after Christmas. Countless. Every time we sit and lift the flaps together I get a serious craving for chocolate. Karen Katz is a toddler’s dream come true. Her illustrations are big and bright and filled with happy babies. Her text is short but still meaty enough for young preschoolers and the flaps to lift and open are perfect for this age when a static book often is just too static for a dynamic toddler. I can see why my daughter brings it over to me everyday. It’s the perfect book to go along with this activity and you could even slide a few of the hearts with photos under a few flaps while you read.
by Kim
We talk about emotions a lot in our house. When you foster, it kind of comes with the territory and makes things a lot easier to have open communication. So I am always trying to come up with new ways to talk about emotions and feelings with my children. Enter my “emotional snowmen”. They are drama queens (even worse than my 3 year old daughter).
To do this activity all you will need are toothpicks, marshmallows, and food markers. These markers are completely edible and can be found at craft stores. I purchased mine in the cake decorating aisle of Wal-Mart. They were around $5 and we use them on all sorts of stuff. I highly recommend them.
Take two marshmallows and stick them on a toothpick. Be sure to leave enough of the toothpick out to attach another marshmallow.
Have your child draw a snowman face. You can open the dialogue by asking them how their snowman is feeling today. When they tell you, you can ask them to draw a face that shows Mommy how they look when they are _________.
My snowman was feeling silly. We made many different types of faces. We talked about things we do when we are feeling the way each face looked. We also talked about what we can do to help change our moods.
Then we acted out each mood and emotion.
Each child had one snowman body and then different heads to change out.
This is such a great ice breaker for new children or just getting your children to open up to you. Sometimes young children have trouble processing and understanding the emotions they feel. This activity really helps them, plus it is perfect for the colder weather.
Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It.
