Valentines Day with young children is about fun, happiness, and love. Some children can be very expressive with their emotions, giving hugs to everyone and everything, from their parents to toy dump trucks. Other children may choose to keep their emotions more guarded and are very thoughtful about how they show love. Everyone shows love differently. Valentines’ day is a great time to talk with your children about what they care about and how they like to show love and kindness.
Please send photos of you participating and/or your finished product to aafrc1998@gmail.com.
Eye spy with my little eye…
What you need: - Plastic water bottle -- Dry rice - - Loose parts *when your bottle is complete, try adding a bit of glue to the lid to keep it firmly in place.* How to create it: “Eye spy” is a fun and easy game that you can play with children of any age. Playing “Eye spy” will help your child develop their language and vocabulary, turn-taking skills and more! To create your own one-of-a-kind Eye Spy bottle, have your child choose items to put into the bottle with the rice. You may have items at home that they would like to use, or they may only want to use the items from the loose-parts bag that is included. As you are doing this, ask your child questions about what items they are choosing. How many? What colour? Bigger or smaller? Is there an item in the bag that your child thinks will not fit into the bottle? Are they able to use their fine motor skills to manipulate larger items into the small bottle opening? Play together or on your own! Babies can even take part in the fun. During tummy time, babies can roll the bottle back and forth, and the sound of the contents gives the bottle a unique rattle sound!
Heart Scratch Heart What you need:
· Black heart cut out - Wooden stick
How to do it: Practice your pencil grip as you design and create your own valentine. Your child will be strengthening their fine motor muscles as they figure out how hard or soft they will need to push with the stick in order to scratch the black coating off of the heart. Will you scratch off all of the black, or just a little bit? Will you make a design or pattern? You may choose to give this heart to someone you care for, or you may want to keep your creation. The choice is yours!
Wrap up your heart! What you need:
· White jagged-edge heart
· Yarn How to do it:
How does this heart feel? Do you notice that the edges are poky? Do you think the yarn will slip off, or do you think it will get stuck on the poky edge?
Begin by having your child carefully put a small amount of yarn through the hole. Hold the heart in one hand and the string in the other and wrap the yarn around the heart. Change directions and try to cover different areas. You can use as much or as little yarn as you like.
When you are satisfied with your heart, create a loop with the remaining yarn so you can hang your heart anywhere you choose!