Valentine's Craft

We recently did a Valentine's Day themed craft that I thought I'd share today with you. We now have it displayed in our playroom for decorations and my littles love seeing something they made hanging up!

The printable came from Learning With Letty on TPT and can be found here. I used leftover scrap paper to cut out random pieces of paper in red, pink, and purple. 

It's really a simple and easy craft for Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Toddler Math Activity

Let's look at another Valentine's math activity for toddlers and preschoolers! I created this using PowerPoint, but I highly suggest purchasing a heart die cut because cutting these out (times two so both my girls could play it at the same time!) was a bit of a pain! 

This is a simple number matching game that works on number identification! 

Materials:

• Numbers printed or written on hearts 
• Cardstock
• Laminator (optional, but suggest it for future use!)

I chose to use different colored hearts to make matching a bit easier! You could start with either color as the base and then have your child match the numbered hearts with the other color. You can expand this lesson by having them line up the numbers in order of least to greatest, greatest to least, odd numbers, even numbers, etc. SO many ways to expand or you can simplify it as well! We aren't ready for those expansions yet, so we will just stick with identifying numbers and add the enrichment ideas next year! 

Valentine's Day - Letters

Happy Saturday! While my littles aren't quite ready for this activity, I wanted to share three Valentine's activities I did with my son when he was around 3 1/2 - 4 years old! 

Activity #1:

I printed uppercase and lowercase letters on hearts. First, we lined up the uppercase letters in order. Then he matched the lowercase letter to the uppercase letter. 

Activity #2:
For this activity, we worked on finding the letter "V" within text! You can find this printable at Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Activity #3:
For this activity, we used dot stickers to form the letter "V" and did them in a pattern!

Valentine's Play Doh

Happy Friday! Today I am sharing a Valentine's themed Play-Doh set up that I quickly put together! To be honest, I haven't always loved Play-Doh, but it is SO good for fine motor skills so we pull it out fairly often for fine motor work!

For this set up, I used some of the materials I had in sensory bins and pulled the rest from various places around the house (the play kitchen and a wooden peg set). ANY materials will work for Play-Doh and we will use some tools to help roll the Play-Doh out.

Materials used:

• Play-Doh (Wal-Mart)
• Hearts table scatter (Dollar Tree)
• Cookie cutters (Wal-Mart)
• Wooden peg people (Hobby Lobby)
• Clear plastic divider (Hobby Lobby)
• Play food (Wal-Mart)

While the littles were playing with Play-Doh, I got the idea to take the mini hearts and "hide" them in the Play-Doh for them to find. It was great fine motor practice since you can squeeze the Play-Doh to find the hearts OR pull it apart to find the hearts. 

Valentine's Day Simple Sensory Bin

Last week I shared this fun Valentine's Day sensory bin with you that involved dyed rice, heart shaped cookie cutters, scoops, cups, etc. 

Not all of our sensory bins take a lot of time to set up, some are just simple and thrown together in minutes - like this one below!

I used a lot of the same materials here from the first sensory bin. I created two of these bins in a clear plastic container so they are easy to pull out, grab and go, or simple to keep on the shelf for this month.

Materials:

• Pom poms (we went with reds, pinks, purples, and white for this bin)
• Cups (Wal-Mart)
• Wooden scoops (Amazon)
• Heart shaped cookie cutters (Wal-Mart)

This bin can be thrown together literally in a few minutes and you're done! 

Candy Heart Science Experiment

Valentine's conversation hearts have so many uses this time of year. We have used them in multiple ways over the years. This year we tried a candy hearts science experiment!

Materials:

• Conversation hearts
• Clear cups
• Various liquids 

For our liquids we used things we already had at home: water, Coke Zero, vinegar, and apple juice. Before we started, I asked the question, "Which liquid do you think will dissolve the candy heart the quickest?" We placed 5 conversation hearts in each cup and observed what happened immediately and over time. 

Immediately we noticed that the hearts sank in every substance, except the Coke Zero (actually 1 sank, 4 floated). They started fizzing in Coke Zero immediately. 

We checked the conversation hearts after one hour and again after two hours. Most had risen by that point! Such a fun way to discuss solubility! There's lots of printables online you can find to do this in your classroom and we could have used one at home. I chose not to for this activity since it was just me and my son doing it. We just talked about what we were observing throughout the process instead! 

Other ways we've used candy hearts in the past:

• Sorting by color
• Sorting by first letter
• Graphing 
• Fine motor skills

Valentine's Themed Do-A-Dots

One of my girls VERY favorite things to do is Do-a-Dots! It's so good for visual scanning and fine motor skills, so it's usually a weekly thing around here. I bought Minnie Mouse Valentine's cards for my girls, but I thought these DIY Do-a-Dot cards would be perfect for them to use!

Materials:

• Do-a-Dot markers (Amazon)
• Printable from Contented at Home blog

 These make the sweetest homemade Valentine's cards!

I also printed a few other Valentine's themed sheets for more Do-a-Dot fun! You can find them from Easy Peasy Learners here and iHeart Crafty Things here.

 I love how bright and colorful these are. They are perfect to display on the refrigerator this month!

Valentine's Toddler Math Activity

Today we are working on a math sorting activity using miniature heart erasers! This sorting activity can be expanded to counting as well! 

Materials:

• Miniature heart erasers (Dollar General)
• Sheet with similar colored hearts for sorting 

For this activity, we will match the mini erasers to the colored hearts! You canuse these erasers for so many math skills: sorting, counting, patterns, etc. So many ways to expand this activity based on your child's level and interests!

Valentine's Multiplication Review

Today I'm sharing a quick and simple Valentine's themed multiplication review! My third grader has learned all of his multiplication basic facts and is currently working on multi-digit multiplication, BUT I think it's always a good idea to review basic multiplication facts for complete mastery. I also think it's important for children to know these facts like the back of their hand. 

I think most children enjoy themes, so I decided to create this multiplication review. It took less than 10 minutes to create and it was a quick, fun way to have him review some of their harder facts. You'll notice that I did several from 7s, 8s, and 9s. He knew them all right off, which was great! Next time I could add some 12s facts for more of a challenge. 

Materials:

• Paper (here I used paper from a large easel pad, but ANY paper would work)
• Foam heart stickers (I got these in a set from the Dollar Tree, but any kind you could write on would work)

Clearly drawing hearts that are perfectly equal on each side isn't my strongest suit, but it works! You could do an activity like this with almost any topic or subject. Parts of speech, addition/subtraction/division facts, vocabulary (maybe have definitions written down on the paper and the word on the heart), etc.

Valentine's Fine Motor Activity

Today's activity is a wonderful fine motor activity that I got from @ot_mama_of_twins on Instagram. I thought it was such a good idea that we had to replicate it!

Materials:

• Deck of cards 
• Valentine's Day mailbox 

I chose Mickey Mouse themed since my girls love Mickey Mouse! 

The goal is for children to use their fine motor skills to place the card into the mailbox! Some mailboxes had a slit in the top and some on the side, as shown below. This could be modified by placing the mailbox so the slit it upwards facing, but I love the challenge thrown in with it being on the front side of the mailbox! 

Valentine's Sensory Bin

Happy February! This month I am planning to share 14 days of Valentine's fun for toddler and elementary aged children!

I'll be sharing:

• toddler sensory bin ideas
• toddler math ideas
• toddler fine motor
• arts/crafts
• elementary science
• elementary math 

First, I am sharing our Valentine's themed sensory bin for the month! 

Materials:

• dyed rice (Wal-Mart)
• wooden scoops (Amazon)
• mini plastic glasses (Wal-Mart)
• cups (Wal-Mart)
• cookie cutters (Wal-Mart)
• table scatter (Dollar Tree) 

To dye the rice, I use this method:

1. Place 1 cup of rice in a gallon sized Ziploc bag.

2. Pour 1 tablespoon of white vinegar. 

3. Add food coloring of your choice.

4. Close the bag and shake so all pieces are rice are colored.

5. Spread on parchment paper to allow it to dry. This usually takes about 5 minutes.

It's that EASY and you can save it for years to come!

This sensory bin has been a HIT already! I put it out a little early and my girls have played with it every single day! They love to scoop and pour, so the wooden scoops and plastic cups have definitely been their favorite so far! 

Teaching Colors

I'm back to share a few activities that we have done lately to work on colors! We are working so hard on sorting and matching colors, as well as naming colors.

Activity 1: This is such a simple activity to create at home and cost less than $3 total. The goal is to work on fine motor skills while matching colors!

Materials:
cardboard box (I bought this box so I would have a deep enough box for the popsicles to go into)
colored popsicle sticks (linking similar ones)
markers (to color around the slits you make in the box)

Activity 2: This activity uses dot stickers, which are seriously the best! We use them all the time. We actually did activity on the go in a waiting room. It's perfect to add to a busy bag for on the go, or to do at home! I just laid out construction paper and had my girls match the dot sticker to the paper. So easy and it works on colors and fine motor skills with the stickers!

Materials:

construction paper

dot stickers 

Activity 3: For this activity we used our counting bears to match colors using a printable from Life Over C's. I printed and laminated the sheet and we placed the bears on top matching colors. There are so many ways to use counting bears - counting, matching colors, patterns, etc.

Materials:
Printable from Life Over C's 
Counting bears 

Activity 4: This activity comes from Kelly at Lattes and Lunchrooms. She is the sweetest and I always love to see what she is teaching her girls! For this activity, the child drives the colored car to the matching construction paper. She shared it on her Instagram and I just had to pick these cars up to try it. My two LOVED this activity. We started with the papers close, moved them apart, and eventually spread them all over. So fun!

Materials: 
set of 6 cars (Wal-Mart Valentine's section for $1.97)
construction paper 

Activity #5: This activity also comes from Kelly at Lattes and Lunchrooms! Told you she was awesome! She used dot stickers on an egg carton and had her kiddos match colors using popsicle sticks. Fine motor and colors - it's a win, win!

Materials:
egg carton
dot stickers
colored popsicle sticks (linking similar ones)

Teaching Colors

We have been working hard on colors lately! Identifying colors, naming colors, sorting colors, you  name it. I thought I would share a few sorting activities that we have done recently. 

Activity #1:

I printed off this cereal sorting mat from I Can Teach My Child. I have a laminator at home (best purchase ever as a former teacher and I still use it all the time!) so I laminated it so we could use it over and over. I did this activity at our morning snack time, so it was the perfect color sorting activity that ended in a treat! 

Activity #2:
I purchased a pack of foam blocks from the Dollar Tree months ago and we've used them multiple times. For this activity, I simply printed colored squares to match the foam blocks. After we sorted by colors, we worked on stacking and knocking down the towers. These are tricky to stack because they are small, so it's good fine motor work.

Activity #3:
For this activity, I printed this free Goldfish color sort. Just like with our first activity, I paired this around snack time so we could enjoy the snack after the activity. This was a bit tricky because the yellow Goldfish really look more orange, but my two year olds were still able to sort accordingly!

I'll be back soon to share more color activities!

Snowflake Crafts

Happy Monday! Today I am sharing a few snowflake themed activities we did last week! First, I purchased this set of snowflake stamps from Amazon. These are great foam snowflake stamps that we will use in multiple ways! 

Last week we used the stamps with Play-Doh and created pretty snowflakes! Our next goal is to paint with the snowflake stamps! 

To work on our fine motor skills, we used the 3D snowflake stamps and added them to a fun snowflake! Such an easy way to work on fine motor skills and kids always love stickers! 

Snowflake Do-a-Dot

Do-a-Dot markers are one of our favorite activities, especially for one of my little ones! She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES them. Do-a-Dot markers are great for hand-eye coordination and visual scanning, so it's great practice for little ones! 

For an easy and quick craft, you can find seasonal (or non-seasonal) printables for your little ones! This week we decorated snowflakes - even if it was in the upper 60's one day! Ha! Maybe soon we will get to experience real snow. Until then, we can decorate away!

Snowman Bookmark

If you are anything like me, anything with my child's handprint, footprint, or fingerprint is always a FAVORITE. We made these snowman bookmarks back in December and handed a few out to grandparents for Christmas gifts.

Materials:

• blue construction paper
• white paint
• black marker
• orange marker
• laminator (optional)

The first thing we did was cut the bookmarks out. Next, my little ones put their thumb in paint and I guided them to make fingerprints to create snowmen. We added little smudges around the snowman as snow. Once it dried, I went back with a black and orange Sharpie marker to put on the finishing touches! We opted to laminate for durability.

It was such an easy project and it really is the sweetest bookmark! Such a cute craft if you are a reader or are giving them to family members who are readers!