Valentine’s Day Crafts

Are you looking for a fun Valentine’s themed craft project for your preschoolers? This imaginative shape activity will introduce your little learners to the world of shape and colour, while building basic mathematics skills. Puzzle together hearts in all colours and sizes to create cats, dogs, or even elephants through the art of collage! Take a look the lion we created:

Start off by helping your pupil research their favourite animal. You could take a trip to the local library or visit some of Kent’s best loved animal parks to learn more about our furry or feathered friends. Point out photos or illustrations and ask the children to name facial features and animal body parts. They will love turning pointy cat ears or fluffy bunny tails in Valentine’s Day hearts!

What You Need:

• Card
• Markers or crayons
• Children's safety scissors
• Glue stick

What You Do:

1. After deciding on an animal, ask your pupil to name the features and parts that make up the specific creature (tail, feet, ears, and so on).
2. Talk about how they can use hearts in different sizes or colours to design each part of the animal. For example, a large slim heart turned on its side might work well for a horse's body while a smaller wide heart may be ideal for a dog’s face.
3. Invite them to draw hearts on the paper or card in a variety of sizes and help the child cut these out.
4. Ask the child to place the hearts on a blank sheet of paper in the general shape of the animal. Compare this to putting together a puzzle.
5. Help your pupil gently lift the hearts, after they have been placed onto the paper, and glue them down.
6. Add smaller hearts or details with markers for eyes, noses, whiskers, and other tiny details.

For a Valentine’s Day twist use colours such as red and pink. You can also repeat this project with other non-heart shapes such as circles or squares for a fun lesson in geometry!

You can find more fun worksheets, craft ideas and digital games on Education.com, an American organisation which aims to empower parents and teachers to help their children build essential skills and excel. 

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