Valentine’s Day Play!
With a pretty much blank calendar hanging on my wall at the moment, I decided we needed a little Valentine’s Day Play project. In past years, we’ve never done much for Valentine’s; the day sort of just creeps up and then is a rush to get a last minute card or gift. But Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be about gifts, sometimes quality time is all you need! Here are some of my favourite Valentine’s Day Play activities to keep the kids entertained!
This year the children and I decided to make a window display. A little bit like the rainbows in lockdown and the snowflakes we made at Christmas. We live at the end of a very quiet road with a lot of elderly neighbours. Past window displays have put a smile on our neighbours faces and we wanted to spread a little love again this year.
I thought I’d share some ideas that you could try with your family too this season of love! Note: When I say Day 1, Day 2 it doesn’t mean we did an activity each day. There have definitely been days where we muddled through, ate snacks, went to school or I was running local messy play classes! Some activities like the threading did take a while and was one we would do for a few minutes at a time. Please don’t get the impression that I’m organised, that my children sit and actually do an activity for long or that there aren’t tears and stroppy moods along the way!
Here are the Valentine’s Day Play activities we tried and I hope they give you some ideas. It would definitely put a smile on my face if you shared a photo or comment at the end of this blog.
Heart Printing – Day 1!
I used this idea in my Little Learners classes last February and it’s a simple and effective way to print hearts. All you need is an empty kitchen roll, some paint and paper. I cut the empty kitchen roll into 2 parts and then bent part of the circle at 2 ends to create a heart. Best described by looking at the picture below.
We also looked round the house for heart shaped objects and we found a heart shaped container and cookie cutters. These were great. We decided on red and gold paint. All you do is dip the kitchen roll into the paint and print.
These look really effective and great for little hands. You could use the finished piece as wrapping paper too.
Threading – Day 2!
I have a bag of wool which just lives in our craft box and hardly gets used. We decided to make simple heart using wool. I drew and cut out a heart as seen below and then the children picked the colours they wanted. My son picked all red and my daughter went for a rainbow theme. You could also add beads onto it.
This activity proved to be a fab little Valentine’s Day Play go to activity. We popped some music on and had a sing song too. You could try other shapes, numbers and letters for other occasions too!
Valentine’s Day Play Extras – Day 3!
As part of Children’s Mental Health week my daughter’s school was focused on encouraging children to express themselves. She chose to create and spent ages painting a rainbow and a page full of dots. It was all calm until she decided to have that moment of having to mix ALL the colours we had used and use her hands. When the paintings eventually dried we cut them into hearts and added them to our display.
If you’d like to try a different activity for Children’s Mental Health Week, check out our FREE affirmations activity HERE!
And here it is… the Valentine’s Day Play Window Display! It certainly brings a few smiles to the neighbours and I’d love to see you do a version to!
Thank you for reading all about my favourite Valentine’s Day Play Activities!
Love Lene, Little Learners Basingstoke!
