Thursday, February 6, 2025
It’s our first post of a brand new month
and we’ve got a good one for you!
We are two Grands who love sharing our thoughts and ideas
as retired kindergarten teachers and proud grandmas!
WELCOME!
February brings lots of wonderful moments to celebrate…
With Valentine’s Day at the top of that list!
In today’s post we are sharing simple and fun Valentine activities that
- with your help -
your Littles will love!
If you are a Grand - or anyone - who spends time with Littles,
providing childcare, hosting a sleepover or traveling for a special visit,
you may be looking for simple activities to do with them!
WE’VE GOT YOU COVERED!
Last year, we shared 8 ♥ activities that celebrated this February holiday.
Each activity was perfect for toddler or preschool Littles.
You can find last year’s ideas here!
In today’s post, we’re sharing 5 NEW IDEAS that are not only engaging
but also offer experiences that are developmentally appropriate!
We’ve got a little bit of everything for you and your Littles!
So, scroll on through and check them all out!
Grab your rice bin and bury foam or paper hearts in it and let your Littles dig!
This activity kept Laurie’s one and three year old Littles busy for about 20 minutes!
We call that a win!
This easy craft, brought to us from Laurie and her Littles,
is appropriate for all ages!
SUPPLIES NEEDED
🔴 Construction Paper (I used white, pink and tan)
🔴 Heart stickers or paper
🔴 Pencil
🔴 Glue Stick
🔴 Scissors
DIRECTIONS
1. Choose a color of paper and cut out a big heart, as shown. Glue the heart to a full piece of construction paper.
2. Trace and cut out your Little’s hand including part of their arm. This is your tree trunk and branches! Glue the tree trunk on the big heart. This will finish the tree.
3. Allow your Little to decorate the tree. Older babies, and toddlers can do this with your help - you can hand them heart stickers to add to the tree. Older Littles can cut out their own hearts to use for decorations. You can encourage them to write words on them in the style of candy conversation hearts!
Such careful fine motor work!
This activity may bring back memories of past art projects…
You might remember making symmetrical butterfly paintings using this process.
Laura’s Little L will show you how to make our colorful Smirror Hearts!
Don’t be surprised if you have as much fun as your Littles!
SUPPLIES NEEDED
🔴 White Construction Paper
🔴 Scissors
🔴 Small containers or paper plates
(one container/plate per paint color)
🔴 4-5 Colors of Washable Tempera Paint
(We added white paint to green, blue, red, and purple paints… we even made pink by
adding extra white paint to another cup of red paint.)
🔴 Q-tips
(at least one per paint color)
NOTE: We put all of the project materials in a plastic tray to contain any mess. You can use a sheet pan if you’d like to do this.
DIRECTIONS
1. Before your Little begins, cut out a big heart from each piece of paper. Fold each heart in half and then reopen the heart. (This fold line will be important in Step 3 below.)
2. Time to paint! Let your Little have fun adding colors to the heart. I demonstrated ahead of time how to use the Q-tip that was in a cup to paint with that color and then, when switching colors, a different Q-tip is used! Encourage your Little to use all the colors and to fill many of the white spaces.
3. When your Little finishes painting, he/she folds the heart in half and presses down and rubs his/her hand over the paper to “smush” the print so there is a mirror image on both sides! (Get it? Smush + mirror = Smirror!)
4. Now for the most exciting part… Gently open the paper to reveal a beautiful heart!
Little L had such fun! She made many of these hearts!!!
This large movement activity, compliments of Laurie, will help your own Littles
get the winter wiggles out!
Cut out a variety of paper hearts. I made about 12 out of different colored paper.
Write different “challenges” on each heart. These can vary depending on the age of your Little(s).
Some examples I wrote for 3 year old, Little D:
If you’d like to sneak in some extra work for older Littles,
you could also write one letter, sound, word, math equation, etc on each heart!
This was a popular learning activity in my classroom!
Spread the hearts over the floor and turn on some jazzy music for your Little (and you) to move to. Have your Little(s) skip, run, walk, leap, etc. around the hearts.
Turn the music off and yell “FREEZE!”
Each Little stands on the closest heart and does the action written on it..
(Older Littles can name the letter, sound, word, math equation, etc on the heart,
as another option, as outlined above.)
Repeat until your Littles are tired!
Or until they decide
that playing with the hearts is just as much fun!
Last year, Laura had seen this idea pop up on social media
and knew she wanted to give this recipe a try with her sous chef, Little L!
You’ll love how simple and delicious this Valentine recipe is!
INGREDIENTS
🔴 1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
🔴 about 1/2 cup jam or preserves (we used plum jam)
🔴 powdered sugar (optional)
DIRECTIONS
NOTE: Make sure you and your Little(s wash hands before you begin.
1. Unwrap one sheet of thawed puff pastry dough.
2. Score the middle of the sheet of puff pastry by lightly running a pizza cutter (or knife) down the center lengthwise.
3. Spread jam on both sides as shown below. Can you tell that this was Little L’s favorite part! She had a bit of fun finger painting!
Delicious!
4. After we had washed our hands one again, Little L and I rolled up both sides of the puff pastry until they met in the middle.
The next step is not shown but we cut the puff pastry into 1” sections. Then, when picking up each section to transfer to the sheet pan (lined with parchment paper), I pinched the bottom of the section, forming a heart shape, as shown.
While they aren’t perfect, they are awfully cute!
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Check them regularly and take the pastries out of the oven when they are lightly brown.
6. OPTIONAL: While warm, you can sprinkle powdered sugar lightly over the top of the pastries.
ENJOY!
We hope that, as you scrolled,
you found an activity or two that inspires you and the Littles in your lives
while celebrating Valentine’s Day OR during any time of the year!
We’d love to hear from you!
If you have any fun Valentine’s Day traditions or plans
we’d love to know more!
Simply leave a comment at the end of this post
or feel free to email us directly at ourgrandlives@gmail.com.
where we share new content on a regular basis!
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We’ll be back tomorrow with a few of our favorite WEEKLY SNAPSHOTS!
See you then!
As we say our goodbyes, we’ll leave you with this sweet reminder….
SPECIAL THANKS TO
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These are fantastic Valentines activities for the littles ❤️🤗
Thanks so much for sharing with Sweet Tea & Friends this month Ladies.
Some delightful ideas! I love the tree with the arm trunk :)
I do wish I lived a little closer to our grandchildren to do some of these activites. There are a few art projects planned this week for my high school kids for Valentines though. Thanks for linking with #pocolo
Oh, these look so fun! I love how simple the puff pastry is (and cute), and the folded heart painting you "smush" sounds like a hit! Thanks for sharing this post with us at the Will Blog for Comments #55 linkup! Hope to see you again at #56. :)
We made those jam puff pastry hearts a couple years ago; my baker had found the recipe somewhere and wanted to make them to bring to his karate school's party. They were very tasty! I love all these activity ideas but I think my favorite is Valentine Freeze; that would have come in really handy while homeschooling!