Valentine Art Piece Bag

Sometimes our art is organic. Such as our Valentine's bags.

Miss H brought her small heart punch from home. Miss A wore a heart grid top. So of course we had to combine these into an art piece.

We've been working on multiplication with the bigs, so I took advantage of that aspect of this activity as well.

Since I knew this activity would be time consuming - we only had the one punch and each child had to punch 12 hearts - so I did the folding of the paper to provide the 3X4 grid for the children to glue their hearts into.

Two big aspects of this project were taking turns, and preparing for your turn.

If the punch got to you and you didn't have your paper picked out, then it went on by. It's not often that the children are rushed to make decisions, so it was very interesting for me to observe that aspect of their behavior and capabilities and to see how their thinking and planning changed/developed as the activity went on. I think it was a very beneficial experience.

It was also good experience in fine motor control, and placement of the paper within the punch, which was not clear for easy viewing, so some critical thinking was having to take place.

One of the things I observed, was that the wiser ones would pick out several pieces of paper, have them ready, and then punch out multiple hearts when their turn came. Thinking they were doing something potentially wrong, they were a little sneaky, and very fast at it. 

Impressive. I didn't catch on quickly, since I was helping the younger ones. Since I had never said that you could only punch out one heart at a time, I felt it was just efficient and sound judgement.

As the punch moved on, the children used glue sticks to paste their hearts into individual squares on their grids. Good hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.

Once done, I realized that the size of paper I had used would fit on our white lunch bags and make cute Valentine bags for our Valentine exchange. The children thought it was a wonderful idea, so we did that.

It worked out great!

We had a wonderful Valentine's party with some special treats for the children from the parents, and some special gifts for me!

I have AMAZING clients and kiddos!

Follow Connie -'s board Valentines Theme on Pinterest. Tags: Valentine, craft, cut, paste, math, learning, bags, box, Valentine's, homeschooling, art, process, preschool, pre-k, daycare, child, care

Valentine Sensory Bin

Our Valentine sensory bin this year was put together by the children. They were given free reign in the art studio and allowed to pull anything pink red or white. I gave them a choice of base material, and they requested "red" rice, which turned out more pink.

To make the rice, I used about a half gallon size container of rice. I mildly heated 1/3 cup of vinegar with a pea sized dollop of Wilton Christmas Red gel food coloring. I mixed it well until the gel had completely dissolved, then combined it with the rice until thoroughly coated. The rice went onto two jelly roll pans and into the oven. I had preheated it to 350 degrees, then turned it off and left the rice in the rest of the day. It probably could have used another pea size of the coloring gel, but I didn't want it to come off on their hands once dry.

The rice is their filling and dumping activity.

To this they added a package of Valentine confetti. The confetti they have sorted out [fine motor] and sorted by color.

They also added pom poms, which they sort by size and color and use in a variety of ways; feathers, which they color and size sort; pipe cleaners, which they color sort and manipulate; and red shiny shred filler. 

The cookie cutters they use as bases to fill with rice and pom poms, and wrap with the pipe cleaners.
Tags: sensory, sensory bin, Valentine's, child care, daycare, preschool, pre-k, homeschool, holiday, Valentine's Day, activity, 

Little Stars Learning

Valentine's Sight Word FREEBIE

I searched high and low for a FREE sight word Valentine's mini-book. The one I have in my Valentine's Thematic Unit covers colors and numbers, but not many sight words, which these children are needing.

Besides, they already have that one in their book boxes.

So we worked together to create this one. They already knew these words, but it is a good refresher and it is always nice for them to have books they can read on their own to practice fluency.

This 12 page mini book has 20 pre-primer sight words, 15 primer sight words, and has non-sight words in all caps to indicate a picture prompt. 

Click here for link.

I also have my FREE add and subtract mats available.

Click here for link

Tags: Valentine's, Day, free, freebie, sight, word, Dolch, primer, pre-primer, mini, book, mini-book, preschool, kindergarten, 1st grade, sightword, coloring, craft, activity, theme, unit, 

Valentine Rubbed and Framed Hearts

I saw a Pinterest post that used cutouts to frame children's scribbles. Well we do a LOT of scribbling around here, but one thing we haven't done in a while is use the rubbing mats. I got these from a client years ago that worked for an architectural firm and these were commercial wall paper samples they were going to pitch in the trash. They are the perfect size and nubby enough for even the ones to get some wonderful texture out of with little effort. 

While removing the paper from crayons is a great fine motor skill, it's not something I encourage due to the mess generated. So, they got to pick their colors and then I removed the papers while lurking in the corner out of view, so as not to give them any ideas.

B at 3 could do most tasks for this art craft independently. Just a little older and I would have just given her a demo and let her do her own thing. But none of them are quite at that developmental level yet, so it was hands-on teacher time. But not for the rubbings....these they were all able to go to town on.

 Next they each chose the color of their construction paper, we folded it in half, and the children traced a heart blank. B was old enough to do it relatively well on her own. The others need a little hand guidance.

None of the children are proficient with scissors at this time, so we used the teacher-assist scissors and everyone cut out their hearts. I tossed the center heart out of the way, since it wasn't part of the activity I was focused on. The girls were a little upset by this. I think they thought the center heart was the important part since they didn't have my vision. They asked if they could color them and I of course said yes. 

 Then they glued the back side directly around the heart shape with a glue stick, which was fine for this activity and gave them a measure of independence they wouldn't have had with liquid glue.

 Then they glued around the outer edge on the FRONT of their rubbings [YES, the first one we glued on the back out of habit, so don't make that mistake.]

 Then they got to SHMOOOOOSH them together. Easier to center from the back side, and it's kind of a kick when they turn it over and see the finished product.

 Especially at this age, even though they see the heart, see the rubbing, and put them together, they just can't forsee the finished project and it is a wonderful surprise for them.

I think they turned out pretty great.

SKILLS: 
Math symmetry, heart shape, rectangle, pattern
Fine motor rubbing, trace, cut, paste
Art creative expression, color usage, media manipulation, composite construction

Tags: Valentine's, craft, rubbing, art, colors, coloring, cut, paste, shapes, heart, holiday, preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, childcare, daycare, homeschool, craft, Valentine, day

Color Hearts Sorting

We've been busy this week, as we always do a full week of Valentine activities. One common activity is conversation heart sorting using heart color mats. The 2 1/2 and 3 year-old were able to do this activity solo, as it mainly just worked their fine motor skills since they have color recognition down pat.

For the ones, this was a major learning activity regarding the heart shape, color recognition, matching, visual discrimination, logic and reasoning, fine motor, and verbal skills. They are just getting their colors, so this was a more intense experience for them. Surprisingly, they really enjoyed it and worked a long time at it each time we did it. I am always surprised at the focus these children can maintain. It's much longer than normal for their ages. They got significantly, progressively better each time.

I created the Valentine Color Hearts  file [available for free on Scribd via link], cut my construction paper down to 8 1/2 inches wide with the paper cutter, printed them out, cut them out, and laminated them for years of future use. I made this to use only black ink since my printer is currently running dry on all colors, as usual given how many materials I print out. I may go back and create a set using corresponding colors. If I do, I'll post that to Scribd before next Valentine's Day.

I'm thrifty [cheap?], so I always cut away my lamination as much as possible for later use with little sight words or manipulatives.

They do have the Spanish words in smaller font, as I teach that early. If you would like a version without the Spanish or with another language, just send me an email.


Tags: Valentine's, sorting, colors, Spanish, shapes, heart, holiday, math, preschool, prek, kindergarten, childcare, daycare, homeschool