~ Pre-K & Preschool theme ideas for Valentines Day ~
Books
Rhymes
Queen of Hearts Nursery Rhyme
The queen of hearts,
She made some tarts
All on a summer's day.
The knave of hearts,
He stole those tarts
And took them clean away.
Songs
- Do You Know My Valentine, by Mrs. Jones
- Valentine Songs @ Preschool Education
- Valentines Songs for Teaching: MP3 Downloads
Activities
Valentine Mailbag
[Art]
The simplest Valentine holder is a white lunch bag. Children decorate their bag with heart doilies, Valentine stickers, paper hearts, and crayons.
Tissue Hearts
[Art]
I trace a heart onto white paper with a black Sharpie. Children put red and pink tissue paper squares on the heart by painting over the pieces with
liquid starch. When they are dry, the children cut out the heart.
Doily Hearts
[Art]
Every year (so far), the Dollar Tree has had these doily hearts. The children painted these using Colorations liquid watercolor with Q-tips. The Q-tips worked great with the
liquid watercolor.
Valentines Class Book
[Literacy]
Children dictate the rest of the sentence: "I love ___" and draw a picture to illustrate.
To make our class books, I use "presentation book covers" from an office supply store or Walmart. It has a sturdy plastic cover with a clear insert, and the pages are also
clear inserts. I just slip in a page for the front cover, and slip in the children's pages inside. These can be reused.
Story Retelling
[Literacy]
Choose a Valentines-themed book that you would consider good literature (good characters, plot, beginning, middle, end, etc.) Show the book to the children
and tell them to think about what happened in the story, and the people (characters) and places they saw in the story. Think about what each character
said. Give each child a piece of paper and ask them to draw something they remember from the story. Remind them that this should not be a picture of their
cat or their friends, but only pictures of things from the book. After each child has illustrated the story, have them retell the story in their own words.
Either record each child with a voice recorder or write their dictation on the page.
Valentine Alphabet Game
[Literacy]
Print out the mats in blackline or color. The colored mats help children find the matching letters more easily. Children will choose a heart, look at the letter
on the heart, and match it to the same letter heart on the mat. Continue until all of the hearts are covered. Children can match uppercase to uppercase letters or
uppercase to lowercase letters.
Some children may enjoy using the blackline mats as a recording sheet. They will match the colored wooden hearts to the mat by matching the letters, then use
a crayon to color the heart on the mat the correct color.
For this activity, you will need to make the heart manipulatives. I made these with a package of wooden hearts purchased from a craft store. I painted them
with pastel colored acrylic craft paint, wrote the letters of the alphabet on them, and sprayed over them with clear spray paint to protect them from getting
dirty. If you will be using the colored mats I have included, make sure you write the correct letter on the matching colored heart: A, G, M, S, Y are pink;
B, H, N, T, Z are lavendar; C, I, O, U are yellow; D, J, P, V are light green; E, K, Q, W are light orange; F, L, R, X are light blue. If you do not wish to
make the wooden hearts, just print out a copy of the colored hearts mat to use as manipulatives.
Valentine Letter Sounds Game
[Literacy]
Print out the mats on cardstock paper. Use the same heart manipulatives described in the above activity. Children will look at the picture, identify the
beginning sound, find the heart with the correct letter, and place it on the heart on the mat. These mats are self-corrrecting. If children choose the correct
letter, it should be the same colored heart as the one on the mat; if it is not the same color, they should try again.
Valentine Stamping Game
[Math, Literacy]
Write a letter or numeral on each heart, and make a copy for each child. Children will draw a number or letter card from a stack (or roll a die), find
that letter/numeral on their mat, and stamp it out. You can use rubber stamps or bingo dot markers. As an alternative, you can have children draw an "X" over
the heart if stamps or bingo dot markers are not available.
Printable
Valentine Grid Game
[Math]
To play a grid game, children roll a game die, identify the numeral
and count out that amount of manipulatives. Each manipulative is placed over one picture in the grid. Children play until the whole grid is full.
This grid game uses wooden hearts which can be found in a variety bag at craft stores. I spray painted the hearts pink and red.
10 Spaces
20 Spaces
Valentines Sorting
[Math]
I use a heart shaped Martha Stewart craft puncher to cut out the pieces from construction paper. Give each child a bowl of assorted paper cutouts.
Have them sort the paper cutouts onto the sorting sheet and glue them on.
Valentines Patterns
[Math]
I use a heart shaped Martha Stewart craft puncher to cut out the pieces from construction paper. Children glue the cutouts on
the paper pattern strip. You can do AB, AABB, ABC, ABB, AAB, etc.
Valentines Counting
[Math]
I use a heart shaped Martha Stewart craft puncher to cut out the pieces from construction paper. Print out the numeral sheets. Have children
count out the correct amount of paper cutouts to glue onto the numeral.
Candy Heart Sort and Count
[Math]
Children sort a small box of candy hearts onto the colored hearts on the mat. When they are done, have them count how many hearts of each color
and write the number on each heart. These could be laminated & used with dry erase markers if you don’t want to print one for each child.
Candy Heart Count
[Math]
Children place one candy heart on each heart on the paper. You might want to have them color the hearts the same colors as the candy. Then they count
how many they have of each color & write or stamp the number in the space. It would be a good idea to underline each color word with a crayon for non-readers.
Candy Heart Graph
[Math]
Basically the same activity as above, but in a graph style. Graph and count how many candy hearts of each color. Optional: Have children color the graph.
How Many Hearts
[Math, Large Group]
Cut about ten pink and ten red hearts from construction paper or craft foam and place the hearts on the floor. Call on two children to come collect some
hearts: "Zoe, come find 2 pink hearts. Brady come find 4 red hearts." Ask the children to lay the hearts on the floor in a row and have the class count
together to see how many hearts there are in all.
Queen of Hearts Tarts
[Cooking]
Children make their own tarts by mixing two spoonfuls of cream cheese with two spoonfuls of strawberry preserves in a cup. They spread the mixture
onto vanilla wafers, and add red hots.
Resources
Printable
10 Spaces
20 Spaces
Links
- Valentine Theme Links
- Valentines @ Pre-KPages.com
- Valentines @ Enchanted Learning
- Valentines @ The Virtual Vine
- Valentines @ LittleGiraffes.com
- Valentines @ The Teacher's Mousepad
