Adorable Valentine's Card

 I know Valentine's Day is over, but I had to share this adorable "card" that a friend posted on facebook. Sometimes this blog becomes a sort of filing cabinet for ideas and projects that we have done so that's why we're doing this even though it's late. :) This adorable girl is the little sister of one of my old students. Unfortunately we moved before I got a chance to teach this cutie. I miss her family so, so much so it makes me happy to have them guest appearing on the blog. 

The front says: There's a Valentine standing at your door. I'm one of a kind, you can't buy me at the store. I have something for you, That you won't want to miss. Just pucker up and give me a GREAT BIG KISS!!!

The kids wear it like a poncho. You need butcher paper. Fold it in half and draw a large heart so the top two curves of the heart are on the fold. Cut out the v and the bottom of the heart but leave the folded curves in tact. 

It's pretty much the cutest thing ever! Thanks for the fun idea Diana, I sure do love and miss you guys!

Happy Valentine's Day

Man, this week was the week of cutting a million things out. Between my kid's Valentines Day cards, my daughter's science fair board, and cutting things out for preschool my Cricut earned it's keep this week! I sure am grateful for that handy little machine. My little man (who's two) loves helping me push the buttons and peel things off the mat. After this week, he knows which button makes it cut and which unloads the paper because we cut so many things! At least my helper is super cute. :)This is my cute helper and his handsome daddy trying out a backpack before a camping trip. (Brandon wasn't going on the trip, my husband was just testing to see how it felt with the weight in it.)

Anyway, I digress. . . Valentine's day preschool stuff. Here are a few of the projects we did for Valentine's Day.

Heart Wreath

We used a paper plate and different sized paper hearts to decorate it. We added a ribbon with a stapler to hang it from before we glued the hearts on. 

Love Bug Valentine Holders

We slightly altered the love bug this year. We used a paper plate and half plate stapled together to make a pocket. We used Valentine stickers to decorate the pocket. 

We cut a 4 inch circle for the head and added heart antennae, googly eyes and drew on a mouth. We used velum scrapbook paper for the wings instead of tissue paper. And we left off putting on the legs. It gave it a cleaner look and made things a little more simple to make. This does have a lot of steps so make sure you plan enough time to make it. We broke it up and did part, then read stories or did other things then came back to finish.   

Shark Valentines! 

We didn't do this in class, but I had such a blast making and playing with these sharks, that I had to post it! These were the Valentines that my cute little helper, from above made to give to friends. Since he's so young, I made them for him and I kind of had a blast. They are attached to a clothes pin so you can make them talk. Am I a huge nerd that I spent the whole night last night using these sharks to say goofy things to my husband while we watched American Idol? They are pretty much my new favorite thing. 

Here's What you Do:

Print the template from Family Fun and cut each side. (It's linked below)

Trace onto card stock and cut out as many as needed. 

Add an eye. 

Glue half of the template to each side of a clothes pin. (We used a glue gun.) 

Bend one half slightly out so the halves don't hit each other as the clothespin opens and closes. 

Make your shark say something funny as you test it out!

I got the idea from family fun. The link is here and the template is under February 2015. Here's what their professional version looks like. :)

Happy Valentines Day!

Love Bug Valentine

 I can't take credit for this cutie but, I just had to share. Anya made these at the library story time. The rest of the day she would show us her love bug and ask, "Will you be my Valentine?" Too cute.

It's pretty easy - heart shape, black paper head, googly eyes and heart stickers.

L is for . . .

 . . . listen. 

 

We listened to how different objects sound inside a plastic egg. We predicted whether it would make a loud or soft sound and then tested our prediction. We put the information we gathered onto a T chart. 

. . . lamb. 

 

Mary's lamb to be exact. We sang Mary Had a Little Lamb and then highlighted all the letter l's in the first two verses. 

. . . lovebug.

 

We made lovebugs to hold our Valentine's in. The original instructions can be found here. (This picture isn't the greatest, you really should check out the other post. : ) We also made the ladybug snacks mentioned in the same post.

. . . love. 

 

The kids matched heart halves for Valentine's Day. I laminated card stock hearts and then cut them in half using my silly scissors mentioned here. One side had upper and lowercase letters for them to match up. Then, they flipped it over and the back was blank. Then, they matched up the hearts based on the pattern of the cut that the scissors made.

Holiday Necklace

Here is one of the fun crafts we made at our Halloween party this year.

This necklace could be used for a lot of holidays - hearts for Valentine's Day, clovers for St. Patrick's Day, eggs for Easter, Christmas shapes, etc.

I had one of our fabulous moms cut out 5 Halloween shapes (skull, bat, pumpkin, ghost, and witch's hat) using her silhouette machine. Each shape was about 3 inches across, except the bat was a little longer. I used a mini hole punch to make the holes because I didn't want them to swing as much as if I had used a regular hole punch. (You can find mini hole punches at places like Michael's.) Now that I think about it, you could probably cut the hole with the silhouette if you add it to the image.

Anyway, a fun and easy Halloween necklace is a great way to celebrate!

Here's What You Need

• Halloween shapes (or other shapes if doing a different holiday)
• Straws cut into 1 inch pieces
• Necklace string or chords (I used braiding chords found at Walmart)

Here's What You Do

1. Put 6 straw pieces on the string. (A great way to stop the pieces from sliding off is to tie one end to a pencil with a lose knot.)
2. Put on one of the shapes then a straw piece.
3. Repeat step 2 until you have used all the shapes.
4. End with 6 straw pieces up the other side.
5. Tie it off and enjoy!

Puzzle Piece Hearts

We made our moms puzzle piece heart pins for Valentine's Day.


I got the idea from Family Fun Magazine and then we tweaked it a little bit. We made the project two different ways: The first time we made it, I cut out card stock hearts and then cut out the middle so that it would look like the picture on the website.
But after we tried it, the card stock wasn't sturdy enough for the kids to take it home before it dried. So the next time we tried it, I cut out hearts with card stock and glued them to cardboard, but I didn't cut out the middle so they look like the pictures that are above. The next time we do it, I think I will use the cardboard and the card stock and cut out the middle because once they dried, they were very cute. Okay, enough rambling, here's the project:

Here's What You Need:
Red spray paint
20-25 puzzle pieces per heart
white glue
pin backing (we used the kind that are self adhesive)
cardboard
red card stock

Here's What We Did:

1. Take out all of the edge pieces of the puzzle pieces and spray paint red. (You could also spray paint it after the pieces are glued together.)
2. Cut out heart shapes from the red card stock and glue to the cardboard.
3. Use exacto knife to cut out the middle of the hearts leaving a thin heart outline.
4. Glue red puzzle pieces onto heart shape with white glue.
5. When dry, put pin backing on the back.

If you want to, you could attach it to a valentine with sentiments like I'm going to pieces over you or you'll always have a piece of my heart.

There are a lot of variations to this project. Instead of a pin, you could add a magnet, or you could add a sting to use it as a Christmas ornament. It could also be a cute picture frame.

Lady/Lovebugs

For Letter L week we talked about lady bugs. But since it was close to Valentine's day, we made lovebugs instead of ladybugs.
They served the dual purpose of being cute and being Valentine's card holders.
We also made ladybugs for snack. We used grapes, halved strawberries, toothpicks, and mini chocolate chips.

For the Valentine's Holders, Here's What You Need:
3 paper plates
Red Tissue paper
Heart cut outs
Construction Paper
1/2 Pipe Cleaner
Googly Eyes

Here's What We Did:
1. Cut one of the plates in half and decorate the back side with hearts.
2. Staple it to the front a full plate so it makes a pocket.
3. Cut out a face from the third plate. Draw a mouth, glue on a construction paper tongue, and glue on the googly eyes.
4. Tape pipe cleaner folded in half to the back of the face and top with hearts. Glue onto the body.
5. Cut out and glue heart shaped tissue paper wings to the back of the body.
6. Cut out and glue construction paper legs to the back of the body.
Optional: Punch a hole in the top so that you can hang up their card holders.