Valentines Activites

Valentines Activities

This week, and some of last, we have been getting into the feeling of love by doing a Valentines activity everyday.

Some of the below have links but most of them will be described below the list.

1. Sensory Bin
2. Heart Toss
3. Beads and Picks
4. Sun Catcher
5. Playdough Valentine's Bakery
6. Hand made Valentine Card
7. Valentine Song
8. Valentine Picture Pose

Sensory Bin

 What is Valentines without a sensory bin?  I really enjoyed putting this one together.  It was a challenge at first because I was at a loss for ideas.  Once I had the idea though the bin came together perfectly.

The first thing I  had for the bin was the pink plastic grass and some paper hearts.  That was all I had.  I knew this would not entertain my dragons for long.  You can't really drive a car in the grass and there were no little people to pretend with.

I ventured to Wal-Mart and found many fun things to put in the bin for total of $10.00!
I dumped it all in and the bin and the dragons had to search through the grass to find items to put in their buckets.

There was counting, colors, sorting, and fine motor skills picking the small things out of the grass.  I asked for specific things to be found and the kids had to dump their buckets for inventory when they finished.

Doll Dragon was happy after she found everything on the list.
Little Dragon dumped his stuff back in to search for it again.

After the searching was over we all played pretend with the stretchy heart people and Princess Tiana.

Beads and Picks

Little Dragon and I sorted the beads together before beginning this activity.  He did a great job picking up the beads with his tiny fingers. 

I used the big heart picks from the sensory bin and the smaller heart picks I bought forever ago for a dollar and knew I would find a use for them some day. :)

This activity is good for fine motor skills, patters, colors, hand eye coordination, and helps build those tiny muscles in small  hands.  

I asked for 1 thing with this activity and it was that there had to be at least 1 bead on anything that was poked into the foam. Other then that it was free play.  I made the rule when I noticed a lot of the picks were just being pushed in quickly.  My dragons attention spans are small.  If all the pins were stuck they would get bored.

This was not a required activity but I wanted the dragons to get more out of it then just pushing in the picks. 

This activity is still out and both dragons visit it regularly.  Sometimes they will stick in a couple pins and be done other times it keeps them busy for awhile.  I like seeing how different it looks with each child.

Sun Catcher

These turned out beautiful they were a bit messy to make though. 

Before the project I cut out the hearts from construction paper.  This is something the kids could do on their own but they were busy doing other projects for the week so I cut the hearts. 

The dragons helped me measure the cling wrap for the middle of the hearts.  They each got two pieces.  It did take some try and fail to learn the best way to do this activity. 

At first I had them sprinkle glitter and confetti on one piece of wrap then paint the other piece, slap them together to make the window.  Nope that did not work out so well.  It was very messy.  

Then I had them paint first then sprinkle glitter and confetti place the second piece of wrap on top to make the window.  

Much better.  

I don't think it made a difference to the dragons though. 

We used double sided tape to place the heart border on the wrap. Then tapped them to the window. 

Handmade Valentine Cards

There were some extra hallowed hearts, pink grass, and foam sticker hearts from the sensory bin we used to make Valentines.  With a blended family I think it is important that the kids know we are accepting and respect all family members.  

Doll Dragon made a Valentine for her mom and Little Dragon made a Valentine for his dad's girlfriend.  

This means a lot to the kids and those receiving the Valentines. 

Valentine Picture Pose