We love Valentines day for having fun with all hearty stuffs. My daughter can’t get enough of doing heart crafts and in the month of February all she could draw is hearts everywhere. Here’s some of our favorite heart themed DIY learning activities for toddlers & preschoolers!!
1. Alphabet Matching
A DIY board using glitter foam stickers from dollar tree and a sharpie.
Glue all the big hearts on a cardboard piece and write down the uppercase alphabets using a sharpie. On the small hearts write all the lowercase letters and let them match it up on the board.
M is still struggling with letters so it was not an easy activity for her. All the letters were overwhelming for her at first so I gave her only 3-4 letters to choose from and she did pretty well with that.
2. Find ‘H’ on the heart
A simple hands on activity for letter recognition. You just need red cardstock paper , paper clip and some letter stickers. Manipulating paper clips are harder than you think for those little hands and hence it makes a great fine motor practice too!!
Steps ➡️
♥️Cut a heart out of red cardstock paper and stick the letters along the edges.
♥️Let the child find ‘H’ or any letters that you call out and slide in the paper clip on them.
♥️If needed hold the paper for them and let them work on operating the paper clip.
3. Love Name Bug
This easy DIY name recognition activity use clothespin and a paint stir stick – nailing down fine motor skills and name recognition at the same time!!
Supplies ➡️
💗Clothespin
💗Paint stir stick
💗Foam sheets
💗Black marker
💗Googly eyes
💗Pipe cleaner
Steps ➡️
🔸 Cut the foam sheet in heart shapes one for each letter in your child’s name. Cut one bigger heart piece for the head.
🔸Write down the letters on each heart using marker and assemble the head piece using googly eyes, pipe cleaner and a small piece of foam.
🔸Hot glue the head onto the stick and the letters to the clothespin head. You can also paint the stick and clothespin to make it more inviting.
🔸Now write the letters in kids name on the stick. I wanted her to match the clothespin to the lowercase letters so I wrote those on the stick.
🔸Undo the pins and invite them to play around with their name and create this lovely bug 💕💕
4. Heart Counting
A tactile learning activity using some cardboard and foam glitter hearts( from dollar tree). Hot glue the hearts on the cardboard squares and write down the number options with a sharpie. Use some clothespin to clip on the correct number of hearts 💕💕
5. Size Sorting
A simple invitation to learn with pom poms and reused cardboard! Cut 3 hearts in different sizes and set up pom poms to sort as given in the cue card. Using tongs is an extra fine motor challenge too!
Learning opportunities ♥️
🔸Fine motor
🔸Sorting
🔸Counting
🔸 More or Leas
🔸Big or small
🔸Language
6. Heart Threading
A simple yet beautiful heart woven on a throwaway paper plate. There’s tremendous fine motor practice in this simple activity. All you need is a paper plate and yarn with needle. You can choose to paint the paper plate or else choose a colorful yarn.
Paint the paper plate purple and allow it to dry. Once dried use a thumbtack to prick the holes in shape of a heart. Then using the needle make the hole bigger. Thread the yarn and start sewing untill you cover all the holes. At the end place a heart sticker in the middle for a finishing touch!
7. Colored Hearts
Take some kitchen tissue paper and cut in heart shape. Make sure to layer up 2-3 papers to get the depth. Add food coloring into a bowl of water. We took the primary colors so that she could try color mixing too. With an eye dropper transfer water into the paper hearts.The colors were so vibrant and spread beautifully on paper. We paired the activity with the book ’The day it rained hearts’ by Felicia Bond
8. Heart Suncatcher
A Valentine themed book by Cynthia Rylant. It describes the love gestures of a little boy to his pets, friends and family. We talked about our near and dear ones too and I asked her what we can do to make them happy. Her answer to all of them was hugs and kisses!
Anyhow we decided to do a heart craft which she can give to her dad. Enter Contact paper… Cut out a heart pattern on black paper and trace it on contact paper. After snipping the inside of black paper stick it on the contact paper ( sticky side up). Choose some pink, purple and red tissue paper to decorate it. It’s easy to make and a mess free craft 😃
9. Playdough Invitation
I always prefer homemade Playdough as they are softer and have longer life. Here’s the recipe I used if anyone needs it.
1 cup all purpose flour.
1/2 cup salt ( used a little less).
2 teaspoon cream of tartar.
1 cup water.
1 tablespoon cooking oil.
Add all these into a non stick pan after spraying some oil and mix them until all water is absorbed and the dough get rolled into a ball. Take it out and knead it well. Add the desired food colouring and glitter if needed.
I made pink and red Playdough for a valentine theme and here’s what’s in the tray.
❤️ Heart beads
❤️ Red and pink glass gems.
❤️ Goggly eyes.
❤️ Red color sticks
❤️Cookie cutters( Walmart).
❤️ wooden heart ( target dollar spot).
10. Sensory Bin
A Valentine themed sensory Bin !!
💓 Red dyed rice.
💓Pink and Red glass gems( from DT). 💓 Red heart boxes ( from Walmart)
💓Measuring cups and jars
She loved those pink and red hearts and hid them in rice and looking for them. I also used the opportunity to teach colors red& pink and the shape heart. Then she started collecting hearts in jars and the rice in heart boxes.
What’s your favorite Valentine’s themed activity? I hope the activities listed above could be a guide for you to set up some fun learning experience with your little ones!!