Valentine's Day

Honey Pot is 3.5 years old

Little M&M is 23 months old

Heart Animals

For our first activity we made animals out of heart shapes. Both crafts were inspired by Sassy Dealz. First I cut the pieces out.

Then the kids got to work with their glue. I think it's time we purchase a second Elmer's glue, because the glue stick was difficult for Little M&M's little hands to use.

Love how they came out!

Mega Block Puzzles

This is a great idea and printable from a blog called From ABC's to ACT's. Both of my kids are really into their mega blocks. We do puzzles all the time, but I love how hands-on these puzzles are. The kids did too!

We kept these out all week, and Honey Pot often returned to them. Little M&M mainly wanted to build towers though, so we brought out the other mega blocks for him.

Candy Heart Worksheets

The printables for both candy heart worksheets come from PreKinders. Both kids had such fun and particularly enjoyed having a few as a snack after their hard work.

Little M&M rocked his activity! He sorted some candy hearts by color, and did a perfect job.

Honey Pot also did a great job with her patterns worksheet. 

I noticed each pattern on the worksheet followed the ABAB pattern, so I created one at the top for her to practice AABAAB. She did great with both.

Prewriting Practice

Honey Pot also worked on some prewriting skills with this printable from Creative Preschool Resources.

Playdough Fun

We made a brand new batch of playdough for our Valentine's Day unit. I provided the kids with their tools, heart cookie cutters, silicone baking cups and dyed pasta noodles.

Their favorite part was making cupcakes with candles!

We also made some heart cutouts.

I love how the playdough kept its shape after removing the silicone baking cups.

We colored the second half of our playdough batch brown, to make chocolate cupcakes too!

Class Valentines

We baked something special for Honey Pot's friends at preschool: Rice Krispie Treats! She helped me mix all the ingredients together.

And we added some festive heart sprinkles too.

I made a label in Photoshop Elements that says, "Valentine, having you for a friend is a real TREAT." We had a few left over for us to sample, and mmm! On the back of the label, I had written "Love:" and had Honey Pot write her name. She did such a great job!

Sticky Heart

I ripped up some pink and red crepe paper, and drew a heart on a piece of contact paper for Little M&M. He enjoyed this activity.

He has a short attention span for now though, so he didn't use it all up. Honey Pot finished it when she returned from school that day!

Sorting by Size

I drew directly onto our craft table with marker. (Love this table by Step2. Everything we've used wipes right off.) Then I provided Little M&M with 3 differently sized red pom poms, and asked him to sort them by size. We talked about small, medium and large--a new concept for him to think about. Once he understood what we were doing, he did so well!

Measuring Hearts

I saw this on Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten and thought Honey Pot would just love it! She has been playing with my ruler recently anyway. So I cut out a few hearts from construction paper, and drew lines across them in various lengths. She used her ruler like a pro, and really surprised me when she talked about half inches too. 

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Purple

Little M&M is 22 months old

Purple Coloring Page

I printed off a coloring page from Twisty Noodle and provided Little M&M with the purple crayon, dot marker and regular marker.

Purple Hunt and Discovery Basket

Little M&M went on a color hunt for things that are purple. I feel sure that he knows this color. He always points it out to us when he sees it. We started in his big sister's room, where he found lots of purple toys.

Then a couple from his room.

And even downstairs in his play kitchen.

When he finished his search, he had created a fun basket of purple things to explore throughout the week.

Purple Water Beads

Honey Pot explored these during her purple unit, and I just had to let Little M&M explore them too. They were such a hit, and yet we hadn't played with them since then. First, we hydrated them, by soaking them in 2 quarts of water for about 6 hours.

Honey Pot actually played with them first during Little M&M's nap. She plopped her feet in of course. Then she asked me to take silly pictures of her, and show each of them to her.

Then it was Little M&M's turn. He woke up so grumpy from his nap, but once I convinced him to put his hands in there, he was calm and happy.

He and sissy had nice practice in turn-taking as they each put their feet in.

The day I had planned to do this also happened to be a snow day. So we had a bin of snow next to this, and the tools and toys I provided for it made their way over to this bin. The kids scooped out water bead cereal to pretend to eat.

And loaded their dump trucks up with them.

We took this out the next day for play as well. Just as fun!

Purple Blocks

We built towers out of Honey Pot's Mega Blocks. He could do this for a long time!

"Knock't over?"

Sticky Paper Rainbow

We like to review each of the previous colors Little M&M has learned, and so we completed a rainbow craft today with Honey Pot, whom was also wrapping up her letter R unit. The idea comes from Mama Papa Bubba.

Honey Pot did most of this craft, but Little M&M did love putting the pieces onto the sticky paper. It wasn't always on the right color, but it was a nice review for him. We always identified the color of the paper that he picked up.

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