We spent two fun weeks doing some heart and Valentine's Day themed activities!
Cotton ball Painting
We used cotton balls and clothespins as stamps for this painting. I taped down a piece of cardstock cut out as a heart, and invited Sweet E to stamp around it with her cotton ball "paintbrushes."
Then I peeled up the cardstock heart, and we were left with this beautiful painting! Such great process art!
Upper/Lowercase Match
I hid uppercase letters in her rainbow rice, and she scooped them out then matched them up. Free printable lowercase alphabet mat from School Time Snippets!
I provided Sweet E with a coffee tin, a large funnel, and a scooper to help her sift through the rice to find the letters!
I love when learning activities offer a rich sensory experience too!
Playdough
Sweet E requested some playdough this week, so we pulled out our homemade, gingerbread playdough from Christmas. Still good! I provided her with heart cookie cutters and manipulatives. She loved making cakes!
And cookies too!
Heart Flip Number Activity
This free printable came from Modern Preschool! The game just required the 2's-10's from a deck of cards. As Sweet E flipped a card, she could dot that heart.
We took turns flipping a card over and dotting that number.
Hundreds Chart
Sweet E has been trying to read digital clocks recently, so I thought it was time to learn larger numbers. Here's a quick activity to introduce her to these numbers a bit. Pick a card, then find the match and cover it up with a heart!
We did just a few of these. It was quite a challenge!
Size Sorting
Super simple activity for her. But it helps to build her confidence and reinforce old skills by doing them here and there!
Fill in the Missing Number
I created this page in Photoshop Elements, then wrote in some numbers starting with the teens. Sweet E needed to place the stickers where they go in number order.
Lacing Beads
I provided Sweet E with beads in Valentine's Day colors, and invited her to make a necklace. She was so excited to do this!
She decided to make a pattern: purple, white, red, pink.
She got this far on her first day, but decided to leave it out for about a week so she could return to it. She ended up doubling this amount of beads (no pic of that final version though). And was so happy with her necklace!
Cutting and Gluing Practice
I offered Sweet E a simple craft one day to fill the time. She loves cutting yarn, so I gave her a couple colors, a piece of cardstock shaped like a heart, and glue.
It came out pretty good!
Learning Notebook - Letter H
Just a quick H is for Heart activity with some of her heart stickers.
Looks like that lowercase b fooled her!
Cookie Cutter Stamping
Another painting activity, this time we used our playdough cookie cutters as stamps! I cut off a large piece of craft paper for this craft.
I thought she'd just do a couple and say she's done (as she sometimes does with painting activities). But she kept on going until the whole paper was filled!
When it dried, we hung up this beautiful work of art to enjoy all season long!
Addition Practice
I drew a quick heart page to work on adding with Sweet E. One of the dice went to 3, and one went to 6. This way we didn't get into such big numbers!
She rolled the dice, placed that many hearts in each half, and added them up. Then she wanted to write the sum herself!
She rolled the dice and did it again and again!
She's doing so great with adding!
Beginning Sounds
Free printable from Teaching Mama! I cut out a few and let her get started as I cut out the rest. She picked up a half-heart with a picture on it, figured out what letter it started with, then found the lowercase letter to match up with it.
Perfect!
She did every one of them, no problem!
Pom Pom Patterns
Another easy concept for Sweet E, but she actually had a lot of fun with this. I started a pattern, and she finished it.
She loved this!
💗
Then I invited her to begin a pattern for me to complete.
We did so many!
100th Day of School!
Honey Pot and Little M&M celebrated their 100th day of school during our Valentine's Day theme, so I thought Sweet E and I would do a few activities to mark the occasion too. Though we've been doing tot school for so long, it was fun to celebrate 100 days of official homeschooling! First I wrote 10-100 on mega blocks, in dry erase marker, so Sweet E could count by 10's as she built a tower.
I showed her how to look at the first number, and that it was similar to counting from 1-10. She picked up on it very quickly!
Ta-da!
Then to help familiarize her with the number 100, we did a quick sticker activity in her learning notebook. Cover the 100's.
Bingo Dotter Worksheet to help us count to 100. Free Printable from Teachers Pay Teachers!
And finally, to tie it into our Valentine's Day theme, we counted out 100 hearts, in groups of ten. I drew the big heart right on the table. It cleans off easily.
She decided to switch off pink and red sections. And diligently counted out ten at a time!
Looked great!
Tracing and Cutting
On another day, Sweet E was looking to do some activities when I had none planned. So I quickly drew out some hearts out of dots, and invited her to trace them, then cut them out.
Such a happy girl!
Color Mixing
Sweet E has been asking to read a Pinkalicious book over and over again recently. In it, Pinkalicious uses up all of her friend's pink paint, as well as the red and white, since red and white make pink too. So I was inspired to make our own pink painting too! Similar to other color mixing activities we've done in the past, I provided Sweet E with the two colors and invited her to use her hands to mix them around on the paper.
She started off neatly.
Then got into it with both hands!
Beautiful pink!
I cut it out, and she glued it to another sheet of paper, where she showed how she made pink. Pink-tastic!
