V is for Valentine! What else??!!

During the week leading up to Valentine's Day we have been talking about how we love, who we love and who loves us.  This, of course, brings alot of discussion about grandparents.

These two books have been class favorites of MINE since I purchased them a couple years ago.  They are sweet stories about how Grandmother and Grandfather spend extra time with us and how that time is an expression of L.O.V.E.! 

Even at such young ages our little preschooler's understand this.  These two books are memorized at a very young age.  They have a great pattern and meter.  I would absolutely recommend adding them to your home library.  Your children would LOVE it!!!

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"A person's a person, no matter how small."Dr. Suess

This is such a precious quote...  It reminds us that even our sweet little ones have feelings, desires, demands, curiousities that should be listened to and explored.  To allow for the opportunity for ALL our little ones to participate in an activity, sometimes we have to think "outside of the box." 

Normally a chalkboard would be attached to a wall.  This really only allows for a couple of children at a time to utilize.  This is also a very difficult skill for a one year old to master when trying to hold a piece a chalk AND color. 

Think, think, think...we solved this issue by keeping our chalkboards and dry-erase boards "mobile."  They simply sit out and when the children want to color, we place them on the floor.  This allows for ALL our children, no matter their age or skill, to participate in chalk play.  Yes, they get it ALL over their clothes, but they don't seem to mind and neither do we!  After all...play IS learning! 

We used these most recently to draw our letter V and L, write our names, and practice shapes, colors, patterns and coloring inside and outside of an object.  Since it is Valentine's Day holiday time, we have been drawing LOTS of hearts, big hearts, little hearts, blue and green and red hearts! 

Just take a look at the sweet pictures of our little ones at play on the boards...

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Math, language arts, fine motor skills, and more!

We used a few of our old playing cards to make this fun file folder game. The younger children use this for matching and number recognition. Our older children use it for addition and subtraction games.

Our fantastic assistant teacher, Ms. Melissa, came up with making a LARGE playdough pizza with our sparkle pink Valentine playdough and then talking about everyone's favorite flavors, slicing the pizza and having everyone practice taking turns, using their manners to say, "Please," and "Thank you!" It was also a great way to observe cutting in halves, quarters and eigths!

During the past week we made LOTS of hearts. We have used all mediums of art. Here we are preparing our hearts for reverse painting. We used painter's tape to make designs, then paint, and glitter glue. We then waited for everything to dry and pulled the tape off to reveal our designs under the paint.

In the spirit of all things pretty and fancy we purchased several sizes of frilly paper hearts in various colors. We gave the children free reign each day leading up to Valentine's day to create special cards for loved ones. We used stickers, paint, glitter, and lots of hearts cut from all colors, weights and textures of paper. We discussed red, pink, silver, black, gold, white, sparkly, smooth, rough, fancy, and frilly. Art time is a perfect time to talk about shapes, colors and textures without the use of boring ol' flash cards!!

Once she completed the entire, "plus one, plus two" game we were playing she was one PROUD girly!

More fun with food... We try to make meals that they will LOVE to eat. This morning we used banana chunks for the eyes with a little chocolate chip on each "eye," a chocochip heart muffin for the nose and a turkey bacon smile! Delish!!

The finished product! These turned out ADORABLE!! A special thanks for all the "heart-work" goes out to Ms. Melissa and Bella for all their sewing assistance!!! On the back we wrote, "You hold my heart!" complete with each child's name and year for rememberance!!!

Instead of Valentine boxes this year we decided to make Valentine bags! We used manilla file folders that we glued and decorated. We then stapled a bright red ribbon for the handle and VIOALA! COMPLETE!!! These turned out great and were the PERFECT size for little arms and hands to handle.

In all the "partying" I couldn't capture very many non-blurry pictures. They were SOOOOO excited to pass out their Valentine cards and were moving at the speed of light! We had a GREAT time and thank you Moms and Dads for sending all the wonderful treats!!!

During our Valentine activites we have been "bedazzaling" EVERYTHING! One of our little 3 year olds decided that her letters needed a bit of bling! What a GREAT idea!! It's fun to watch, when children are allowed to have access to different mediums, the creative solutions they can come up with!

We don't just eat our food...we think of all types of fun "games" to play with our food. After all...they just want to play anyway, right!? The children wanted to have a little morning snack of Fruit Loops. Thankfully, I had some on hand. While pouring the cereal onto napkins I asked the children to make piles, separating into colors each of the different colors they found in their cereal. One of our little ones also asked for a marker, she wanted to make "sections" for her colors. We then counted and counted everyone's fruit loop color catagories. After that we also added a bit of adding and subtracting!

Adding the finishing touches to our reverse painting hearts...

Making Valentine people is an annual event for us. We have been making this fun craft for years! The older children get to make the arms and legs and then help the younger children with "back and forth."

We used old playing cards to make this fun file folder game. The younger children used it for matching while the older children used it for addition and subtraction...

This was another one of our fun math games that included mostly subtraction! When giving young children cute heart shaped containers filled with heart candy, you can EXPECT to only be able to practice subtraction as they eat the candies one, by one, by one! SOOOOO FUN!!!

Here we are at it again with Valentine arts and crafts. Our children LOVED making all sorts of Valentine's for their loved ones and this was NO exception! Here we used felt hearts and glued small ones atop of larger ones. We glued two larger ones together and stuffed them with some cotton, sewed them together for a bit more security and made soft, cuddley heart pillows for our Mommy/Daddy Valentine gifts. They were SOOOO excited to give their gifts at the end of the day!

EVERYONE'S Valentine bags :)))

LET THE PARTY BEGIN!!!

"Children are great imitators. So give them something great to imitate."

There is nothing I would rather teach children to imitate than love...  With love we are safe and able to fully express all of who we are and will become in the security of that love.  We can make mistakes.  We can be great.  We can fail.  We can grow.  We can give.  We can receive.  With love we can teach and be taught.  Love frees our hearts to be open and expressive because of it's forgiveness, because of it's strength.  Love can be hurt, but thank God it can also be healed...  We had a wonderful week of loving, giving, creating and expressing our love for others.  Happy Valentine's Day everyone...I hope you have loved...  -L