On the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, when kids are bouncing around with excitement, preschool teachers appreciate input and assistance from parents. By coming up with creative Valentine’s Day crafts and bringing the materials into the classroom, either earlier in the week or during the Valentine’s Day party, parents can give the teacher a break and join in the fun.
Button Heart Flowers Ross
Kids can make a small bouquet of flowers by putting together several of these blooms created by Jean Eick for her book “Valentine’s Day Crafts.” Kids will need large shank buttons with holes large enough for chenille stems to fit through, tiny red hearts cut from craft foam sheets, white glue and green chenille stems. First, kids glue the red hearts in a ring around the back of the button so that they peek out on the front. Then they thread the chenille stems through the button, making the “stem” even and twisting both sides together. Three flowers can make a bouquet when wrapped in a little square of tissue paper.
Valentine Crowns
Preschoolers can dress up for the holiday with a Valentine crown. For the crown suggested by Kathy Ross in her book “All New Crafts for Valentines,” kids start with 2-inch wide red poster board headbands fit to the size of their heads before stapling. The crowns are decorated with upside-down construction paper hearts glued around the headband. Kids can add stickers or glitter to their crowns.
Valentine Characters
Long, skinny strips of construction paper and various sizes of construction paper hearts are the materials for making Valentine characters. Working on a large sheet of construction paper, you can show kids how to glue down a large heart for the body, strips for arms and legs, and smaller hearts for the head, hands and feet of a Valentine boy or girl. Kids can draw on facial features if they wish.
Love Bug
A cute Valentine craft project from Kaboose is the Love Bug, a butterfly-type creature, whose body and head is made from a cardboard toilet tissue tube covered with pastel-colored paper. Kids can draw a simple face at the top of the tube. You’ll provide kids with some construction paper wings you’ve prepared to decorate with markers or stickers and glue onto the love bug’s body. Finally, chenille stems are curled at the ends and glued into the inside top of the tube for antennae.
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