Valentine's Day

I am so glad I decided to dedicate whole weeks to the holidays this year. It's too hard to try to fit them into another theme, and it's fun to celebrate with fun learning activities. I just somehow forgot to take any pictures...

Dramatic Play/Blocks
It has nothing to do with Valentine's. I couldn't really think of anything that did. I had requests from some kids to have out stick horses, so I got them out, along with cowboy hats and vests. To go along with that, I also put the barns and farm animals in the block area. And again, due to popular demand, I had out the doll house and people.

Art
We made TP tube hearts. I also had paint brushes out so they could just paint with the red and pink paint too.
I'd had requests for glue and glitter the week before too, to make valentines, so when things slowed up with the painting, I pulled out the glue and glitter and the art table was busy the rest of the day. It was a messy, but fun day of art!
Thursday, we made our bags to collect our valentines in. There were die cuts, stickers, and stamps. There was also paper for them to make valentines once their bags were done.

Small Manips
We did a valentine puzzle, ordering numbers 1-10 to make a picture. I found it here.
We also made valentine and heart pictures with beads. Found here.

Writing
We had valentine stamps, die cuts, and colored paper to make valentines.

Snack
The first day we got our sugar fix by decorating and eating heart sugar cookies.
The next day we tried to be healthier (mainly since they'd be getting their valentines today), so we made healthy pink smoothies with berries, bananas, and mangoes. We also added heart shaped ice cubes.

We only had 1 outside day with bad weather, but snow is melting, and we're already getting spring fever over here!

Large Group
We learned the song Skidamarink.
Day 1, we read a book called The Best Thing About Valentines, and learned that the nest thing is having friends to exchange valentines with. We then sorted and graphed conversation hearts. I introduced graphing by looking at our weather graph we do daily, then we graphed some hearts as a large group. We reviewed the instructions several times (sort, graph, show teacher, then eat) and I was SO impressed at how well they followed them. Every single one of the, sorted and graphed their hearts with NO HELP! I was very proud of them!
 

 
 

Day 2, we read Franklin's Valentine, then passed out our valentines. I attempted this last year one at a time, while they waited. Not great. So this year, I put my mom skills to use, and did what I often do when I need to get something done, I turned on a show. It was educational, though! I tried to find a good valentines movie and couldn't, so instead we watched an episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood about friendship. It worked like a charm, and I was able to help each child pass out their valentines, then we went home (we did small group first today).

Small Group
We made tissue paper hearts. It helped with small motor skills (scrunching the tissue paper), and also reviewed their number recognition. I got the idea here.

We did a phonics activity, focusing on beginning sounds. I got it here.