Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays. The red, pink, and purple everything! The candy! The chocolate! Love!
Valentine’s Day lends itself to many learning opportunities. With all the little candy hearts to be used to count and make patterns, letters to be written to loved ones, tiny packages and envelopes to stuff, the possibilities are endless!
As always, the supplies needed for these activities are minimal, and can be used multiple ways.
You May Want
- Small heart counters (candy or plastic)
- Themed erasers
- Valentine’s Mailbox
- Small Heart Containers
- Colander
- Small foam or wooden hearts
- Ice Cube Tray or Ten Frame
If you can only buy one thing from this list, make it conversation hearts! They are one of the best and easiest themed counters. Buy one bag and you’ll use them for so many things. In fact, most of these activities can be done with only them!
A simple pattern copy ice cube tray is made extra special with a candy twist! I make a pattern on the top row for my four year old charge to copy on the bottom. So simple!
Another dollar store find is this adorable heart drawer and table scatter. Simply have your child put the hearts inside the hole for a unique posting activity. (More info on posting activities can be found here!)
I enjoy long walks through the seasonal aisle at Walmart, I find the best things! One of those jackpot moments happened when I spotted this set of 12 heart boxes and matching spike balls sitting nearby. I knew that my charges would love stuffing each heart with a matching ball and placing the lid on top. What I didn’t anticipate was all the extensions it would provide! We’ve played guessing games trying to find out what color is inside. I really like to switch the tops and bottoms for my kids to fix for fine motor practice! You could definitely fill these boxes with candy or heart scatter!
Here is another extension that we loved! I added a mailbox for the kids to pretend play mailing Valentine’s. They loved it!
I made these five frame cards last year (available here) when we were just beginning to practice one to one correspondence. We’ve moved on the full ten frame now, but it doesn’t hurt to have a tray available that I know the children are able to complete independently to build confidence.
We love a good sorting tray! You can make them for colors, sizes, and shapes.
Valentine’s Day decor is severely underrated! Look for some heart picks at dollar tree to make this easy fine motor colander. Have you child pull the hearts and then place back into the holes.
Last year when my 2 year old was a young toddler, he loved figuring out how to put these wooden hearts into the mailbox. The wood provides a challenge to sliding the heart in the slot properly.
I hope you’re able to find a few new ideas! Happy Valentine’s Day!
The Teaching Nanny 
1 Comment