Letter V/ Valentine's Day Preschool Theme

Happy Valentine's Day!  Today we talked about the letter V and Valentine's.  Be sure to check out what we did yesterday with a heart theme.

The main source of our activities today comes from Confessions of a Homeschooler's V is for Valentine Prek Printable Pack.

 Over the Big Moon's Valentine's Day Pre-K Pack has  a lot of fun and cute activities.

 Musings of Me also has a Valentine's Day Unit with lots of preschool activities.

 Homeschool Creation's has a Valentine's Day Printable Pack that has some great activities.

 Lawteedah also has a Valentine Tot-Kit worth looking into.  2 Teaching Mommie's Sweetheart Pack is also full of some fun activities. 3 Dinosaur's has a Valentine Printable Pack as well.  You can also check out my 2012 post about Valentine printables.

We had a great time with this little valentine craft.  My son cut out paper in any shape and size that he wanted and then glued it onto a paper.  After he did that I cut it into a heart shape.

 Here are some more heart crafts and ideas to check out.  Here is a fun hand print card to do with your child.

Here are 10 of my favorite children's books about love.  Have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day Printables

If you are wondering still what to do with your young children for Valentine's Day there are a ton of great printables out there.  These are the ones I will be doing with my children the next couple of days.

 Here is a kindergarten pack from Homeschool Creations (she also has a preschool pack)

 I found this fun pack of Valentine Themed Math and Literacy Activities on Teachers Pay Teachers for free.

 Over the Big Moon has an adorable pack that includes these activities.

 Lawteedah has a big pack of printables including this cutting practice sheet

 Two Teaching Mommies has a cute Sweethearts pack with lots of fun activities

 File Folder Fun has some fun heart/valentine themed file folder games.

Musings of Me has a great printable pack of fun activities as well.

Most Popular of 2011

As we come to a close of 2011 and since we are on a preschool break I thought I would share my most popular posts of 2011 (based on the number of views they have gotten).  I hope you enjoy the remaining days of 2011 and Happy New Year!  We will be back in action after the new year starts.

5.  Hand Print Valentine

4.  The Mitten by Jan Brett

3. The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear

2.  14 Days of Showing Love: Valentine's Day Countdown

1.  St. Patrick's Day Countdown

Here are some of my favorite posts from 2011

Trains

Easter Eggs

Stars

Flowers

V is for Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!

We talked about the letter "V" today and did several of Confessions of a Homeschooler's V is for Valentine Activities.  We also did some fun Valentine activities from the downloads I mentioned in my post last week.

I hope you all have enjoyed your Valentine's Day!

Contact Paper Hearts

This is a simple, fun idea that I thought turned out cute. 

Using contact paper cut out a heart. Then let your child decorate the contact paper.  They could use a variety of different things from pom-poms to glitter.  I thought it'd be fun to see what it would look like with torn pieces of paper.  My boys picked out some paper to tear up and they had a great time putting the papers on their hearts. 

This was simple enough that the only thing that I did was cut out the heart and peel of the backing.  Then they went to town. (They are 5 and 3). 

Shared With:

 

Hearts

Gathering Time:

Put puzzle pieces together to make a heart (introducing our topic)

Talk about how hearts symbolize love

Sing, “Love One Another”

Show where our heart is inside our body and feel it beating

Focus Activities:

Candy Heart Counting

Contact Paper Hearts  (see what we did here)

Make heart shaped sugar cookies and decorate them

Heart Matching Game

Other Possibilities:

File Folder Heart Patterns

 MoomooTutu has an awesome download for Valentine's Day

Musings of Me also has an awesome download

RESOURCES:

http://jennwa.blogspot.com

http://www.preschool-learning-and-crafts.com

http://www.filefolderfun.com/

Handprint Valentine

Here is a fairly simple valentine to help your child make.  It's perfect for grandparents or other relatives.

• Trace your child's hand and cut it out.  

• We then put a heart sticker in the palm of the hand.  You could glue on a paper sticker as well. 

• Glue the hand to some festive paper.

• Write a little message in the hand.

• You now have a fun valentine to give away!

Here are what my two oldest boy;s valentines look like.

Shared with:

10 Picture Books about Love

Since Valentine's Day is coming up I thought I'd share some of my favorite picture books about love. 

Here are some of my favorite books to read to my children:

Love You Forever by Robert Munsch Illustrated by Sheila McGraw

I Love You Because You're You by Liza Baker

You Are Special by Max Lucado Illustrated by Sergio Martinez

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein



The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn Illustrated by Ruth E. Harper and Nancy M. Leak

Because I Love You by Max Lucado Illustrated by Mitchell Heinzel

Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney Illustrated by Anita Jeram

I Love You As Much... By Laura Krauss Melmed Illustrated by Henri Sorensen

The Snuggliest Snuggle in the World by Sarah Nash Illustrated by Daniel Howarth