Valentine's Day Archives - Page 2 of 2

Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin for Kids

February 11, 2013 By Deirdre

A Valentine’s Day sensory bin is a great time to explore and play with symbols of the holiday as well as fun red objects. I recently share the bin above with JDaniel and he had a great time exploring, learning with and, playing with its contents.

What did I put in it?

Valentine’s Day themed stencil
Heart shaped cookie cutters
Heart shaped doilies
Heart shaped sunglasses
Red funnels
Red and pink buttons
Ribbon
Heart shaped Straw
Heart shaped skewers
Red beans
Dice with hearts on them
Pink Spoon

While children just love to explore and create their own activities with sensory bins, I like to guide JDaniel just a little bit. After he had checked everything out and played with it for awhile, I suggested we try the activities below.

Sunglass Weaving

He simply wove a couple of strand of ribbon through the slats in the sunglasses. It was a great small motor skill and in took some concentration to do. He couldn’t see through them when he was done, but it was a fun activity.

Estimating Beans

How many beans did JDaniel think would fit into each cookie cutter? Did the same number of beans fill the large cookie cutter as they did the small one? In this case the large one did not get filled up by the same number of beans. It didn’t even fill one layer of beans.

Heart Skewer Shuffleboard

The heart shaped skewers made perfect shuffle board sticks. I had JDaniel test out whether the bean or the button made it farther when it was shuffled across the kitchen table. I think he added a little more force behind the that he wanted to win. He had picked the bean. Either way it was a fun activity.

Straw Blowing Activity

JDaniel also worked on blowing a button and a bean across the table with a straw. The skewers were much easier to use to get the bean and button moving. It took a lot of blowing to get the button across the table.

Funneling Buttons

Which buttons could be sent through the small funnel? Which ones went through the larger one? Really on the smallest buttons made it through the funnels. A few of the buttons got struck and we had to use the skewer to pop them back up through the top.

Slinky Measurements

JDaniel has the most fun with this plastic heart shaped slinky. He loved trying to get it to flop and and spring back up. I had him place it on the end of the sensory bin and count how many hearts across the bin was. That got him thinking about other things he could measure the length of. He ended up measuring chair, tables and even his bear. They were accurate measurements due to the fact that the slinky had to be stretched out to measure the length of some things, but it was great counting practice.

As I mentioned a sensory bin is mostly for exploring, but I did want to share with you six activities we did with the contents of this bin.

Valentine’s Day Ideas for a Kid’s Lunch

February 11, 2013 By Deirdre

On Monday JDaniel came home from school and asked if I had made him a muffin tin lunch. For a long time he had a special muffin tin lunch with a theme a couple times a week. I have moved on to bento style lunches this past fall and I guess he has been missing them. I told him that I hadn’t made him a muffin tin lunch, but I would dig around in the refrigerator for some foods we could have to create one. You want to try come up with Valentine’s Day ideas for kids lunch they will enjoy.

Valentine’s Day Ideas for a Kid’s Lunch

Once I assembled a wide variety of foods, we used some heart shaped cookie cutters to transform a few of them into hearts. Others were red in color and were just placed into a heart shaped muffin tin that we have.

JDaniel ended up with cornbread hearts. (I tried to get rid of all the breadcrumbs, but as soon as I got rid of some others fell of the bread.) Red grapes also ended up in the top row. The second row contains a pumpkin bar cookie cut into a heart shape and strawberry yogurt with sprinkles. The bottom row has leftover chili and a slice of American cheese cut into a heart.

As I mentioned, I have started to make themed bento lunches for JDaniel to have when he stays for Lunch Bunch at school one day a week. Below is the lunch he took to school last week. It too has a heart theme.The bento lunch contains a slice of ham, a corn tortilla, and a chunk of Laughing Cow cheese all cut into heart shapes in the main compartment. The top compartments contain dried cranberries and a heart shaped apple along with a heart shaped tomato.

I have to confess that JDaniel did a much better job on the muffin tin lunch then the bento lunch. The bento lunch returned home with the cranberries, tomato, and ham still in the box. JDaniel likes tomatoes, dried fruit, and ham usually. I guess they just weren’t foods in loved on that day.What are some of your Valentine’s Day Ideas for kids meals?

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday!

Science Activity for Kids – Magnetic Heart Jar

February 6, 2013 By Deirdre

Love like magnets can repel or attract. JDaniel is too young at almost five to understand much about how there are some people that we are attracted to and some people seem to repel us or cause us to pull away from them. He has started to understand that there are some things that magnets are attracted to and some that don’t react at all to them. I put together a science activity for kids that I am calling Love is Magnetic and looks at how magnets work together with things that they are attracted to.

Creating This Science Activity for Kids

We created a magnetic heart jar filled with things that magnets are attracted to using the following materials:

red, pink and white pipecleaners
empty peanut jar
paperclips bent into hearts
ball magnets

How did we put the magnetic heart jar together:

I cut the pipe cleaners into thirds and we bent them into heart shapes.

We put all the pipe cleaner hearts and paperclip hearts into the jar

We screwed on the lid.

Once the lid was screwed on, the fun began. JDaniel rolled a magnetic ball that we found in a drawer up and down the jar to see how many items he could lift up. Then he tried rolling the ball around the jar to see how many objects would follow the magnet all the way around the jar.

At first many of the objects clumped together in a bunch. JDaniel has to work carefully to try to just have a few objects follow where ever he lead them with the magnet. The more he practiced the more control he had over them.

It was really fun to watch the hearts dancing around in the jar. The sparkly pipe cleaner stars in particular look pretty flashing around in the jar on the bright afternoon we tried this jar out.

We will be taking the magnetic heart jar out again soon. I think we will add in some Valentine’s Day related hearts that do not contain metal and see how they interact with the magnet. They may not be attracted to it, but that may get stuck under an object that is and end up following the magnet around.

This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday!

16 Valentine’s Day Activities For Kids

February 4, 2013 By Deirdre

I have shared quite a variety of Valentine’s Day crafts, activities, and snacks over the past few years. There are many others coming up soon. Before I share them I thought I would share with you 15 Valentine’s Day ideas I really like and have shared with you and one new one. That gives your 16 Valentine’s Day activities that you can look over and try before Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day Activities

Crafts

Hand Print Paper Card Pouch

JDaniel and I made this pouch for Valentine’s Day last year. It held his Valentine’s Day cards. I don’t think I shared this on the blog last year. I found it when I was sorting through some crafts we did. I love that his little hand print is the stem for the flowers that he made with stickers.

Hearts on Ribbon Bookmark

We made a bunch of these to give to JDaniel’s teachers at school. I cut slits in felt hearts and we threaded them onto some pretty Valentine’s Day ribbon. I folded the ends of the ribbon behind the hearts at the top and bottom and stitched them to the back.In the past we have also made the following crafts:An R2D2 Valentine’s Day Card Holder

Valentine’s Day Cards

Heart Shape Doile PrintsSalad Spinner Valentine’s Day CardsActivities

I hid plastic hearts all around the yard for JDaniel to find I called it looking for love. Each contained a small piece of candy. He was thrilled to find that out.

We have also done the following Valentine’s Day activities and food creations:

Montessori Style Valentine’s Day ActivitiesTransformed His Play McDonald’s into a Post OfficeFished for Alphabet Letter on HeartsCreated Heart Shaped Flowers and a VaseTangram Heart ActivityValentine’s Day Sensory BowlLEGO Heart PuzzleFood Creations JDaniel had this for breakfast last year. We made the granola together and then I used it to make him a special heart-shaped treat.Here are some special lunches I have made for JDaniel with a Valentine’s Day theme:Pink Food Filled Muffin Tin

Heart Shaped Empanada Lunch

Chocolate Dump Cake with RaspberriesI hope you enjoyed checking out our Valentine’s Day ideas. There will several new ones shared later this week and next.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Curious George and Valentine’s Day Flowers

February 10, 2012 By Deirdre

Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing the ways you have learned with and explored books.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

There is just something wonderful about Curious George! We love him at our house. We loved Happy Valentine’s Day George too.

Curious George decides to celebrate Valentine’s in a big way for those he carries for and they with him. There is crazy cooking. There is wild decorating. There is card making with a small mess.

What did we do?

Craft- Flower Arrangement