Valentine’s Day is not a holiday that is easy for your preschooler to celebrate. They can give little Valentine cards, but they probably do not have a love they are celebrating with. So, the love they are going to celebrate on this love filled holiday is the love they have for their family and friends. A great way to help these little kiddies celebrate and enjoy the holiday is to do Valentine’s Day crafts with them. The following are some great preschool age appropriate crafts for Valentine’s Day:
The cereal necklace: What you need is some red and pink cereal loops, such as those found in fruit loops, yarn, and a work space. Your preschool child will have as much fun eating this craft as they will making a necklace for their mom. What you can do is separate out the colors, and let them eat the yellow, blue, and green loops, and use the red and pink loops for their jewelry. You can help them make it extra special by creating a hanging picture to put in the middle, or by helping them color a box to put the cereal necklace in so they can gift it to their mom!
Heart mobile: This fun Valentine’s Day craft takes a little preparation, and requires more help then the one above. What you will want to do is have one hanger per child, and an assortment of precut hearts on paper, that have a string stapled to them. Let the preschool color the hearts, write little messages, and draw their favorite things, and the things they love on the paper hearts. Then help the child tie their heart strings on to the hanger. They can then hang this in their room as a fun decoration for Valentine’s Day and a great reminder of all that they love.
When doing a preschool Valentine’s Day craft, it does not matter as much what you do as it does that you follow some simple elements:
• Make sure it does not require great dexterity or hand eye coordination. These are small children that have not yet mastered their coordination and dexterity. They will end up frustrated if you require them to tie knots, or do something they can’t do, so keep it simple to do, or make sure there is someone to help each child.
• Involve them. If you want them to really enjoy it, you have to make it personal. You can have them color their favorite things as in the mobile idea above, or make something special just for their loved one, as with the cereal necklace. They have active imaginations, and they are busy little people, so just make sure you capture their interest.
• No cutting or gluing or painting. If you do a craft that requires these things you are in for trouble. You will have kids with paper glued to their hands, paint on their clothes, and cuts on everything in sight. Keep the crafting part simple, require coloring with crayons, and easy to attach things, like Velcro.
• Premake anything you can. As far as crafts go for this age, it is more like putting a couple things together, not creating something from scratch. So, if you want them to color hearts, cut the hearts out before they color them. If you want them to make a picture for their mom, make sure you have everything ready before hand.
Preschoolers can really get into crafts, so help make their Valentine’s Day special with great Valentine Day crafts.