Marshmallow Heart Art

O made marshmallow heart art this afternoon while warming up after playing in the snow all morning. She had a great time and said she wants to do this every Valentine's Day.

To prepare this activity, I drew a heart on a piece of cardstock. I gave O a muffin cup full of mini marshmallows. We bit the marshmallows in half, ate one half, and placed the other half on the line to make the heart. O loves marshmallows, but doesn't get the opportunity to eat them often, so this was very exciting for her :) This art didn't last long...within a few hours she'd eaten all of the marshmallows off of her paper! I guess that's a good thing...now I don't have to figure out how to preserve and save this piece of artwork :)

Chocolate Playdough Hearts

O and I recently made chocolate playdough using this recipe. It smelled divine, but we halfed the recipe and I never could get the texture quite right (it was too sticky). O had a great time making chocolate hearts and tricking her Grandaddy and Grandpa into to thinking they were real (they played along...O is not very good at deception :).

Heart "Cookies"

O and I had fun making salt dough "cookies" for Valentine's Day.

We made them a little differently this time...I decided to bake them instead of letting them air dry. We also varied the recipe a bit (we followed the recipe from the long thread). We mixed a cup of flour, 1/2 cup of salt, and a 1/2 cup of warm water. We rolled out the dough and cut out the hearts. We then baked them on 250 for about 2 hours.

O really enjoyed painting the hearts...we're going to glue magnets to the back of the larger hearts, and we made necklaces out of the smaller hearts. This was a fun and easy craft project (that we enjoy doing for almost every holiday!).

Heart Suncatcher...Or Not

I planned for O to make a heart suncatcher using contact paper and crepe paper streamers. I cut a heart out of the contact paper and taped it (sticky side out) onto our sliding glass door. I gave her a basket of crepe paper streamers and a pair of scissors. I told her she could cut or tear the streamers and then put them on the sticky heart. She cut a few streamers, but then decided that she'd rather her heart have tails. My little artist has a mind of her own!

Valentine's Day Surprise Ball

O is getting a surprise ball for Valentine's Day! I saw this tutorial for a surprise ball too late to make one for O for Christmas, but I think it will be a great Valentine's Day gift. It was fun, fast, and easy to make!



First, I collected small objects for the surprise ball, including chocolate lady bugs, Valentine's balloons, a growing mermaid, tiny dessert erasers, chapstick, and stickers.

Then I started wrapping the objects with crepe paper streamers (the tutorial says to cut the crepe paper into strips first, but I didn't cut my crepe paper). I wrapped an object completely before adding another object and wrapping it and so on and so on...

After all of the objects were wrapped in the crepe paper, I squished it around a little to make it a more symmetrical ball (it was a little lopsided at first). I continued wrapping it several times to smooth out the crepe paper. Then I taped the end and wrapped the surprise ball with a ribbon. I think O is going to LOVE unwrapping her surprise ball on Valentine's Day!

Make sure to check out the tutorial at Alpha Mom. The pictures and directions are much better than mine :)

Heart Family

When I saw these heart people at The Crafty Crow, I thought they would be fun for O and I to make. To make the heart people, you need a construction paper heart for each person, 4 pieces of pipe cleaners for the arms and legs, and a hole puncher.

I set up a tray with all the necessary materials. I punched the holes in the hearts while O decorated the faces. She decorated 4 hearts, one for each member of our family. She was so funny when she was drawing the face on E's heart. She kept staring at E's face and looking back and forth from E's face to the heart as if she were copying it exactly onto the heart.

O was surprisingly uninterested in this project, so we didn't finish it until the next day. After she finished drawing the faces on all 4 hearts, we joined their pipe cleaner hands (she made sure that the children were in the middle with the mama and daddy on either side) and hung them from our mantel.

Heart ABCs

Since we're loving these heart activities lately, I decided to write the letters of O's name on them. She was SO excited and thoroughly enjoyed putting the letters in order to spell her name. I also wrote all of the lowercase letters of the alphabet on the hearts. I planned to play with her with the hearts and show her how to make simple words. She had other plans, and she put them in ABC order. I was surprised since that's not something that I would have ever taught her to do, and I had no idea that she could do it. I'm always surprised by the things that she learns completely on her own :)

Cutting Hearts

I told O last week that I'd show her how to cut hearts. She assured me that she couldn't cut a heart, so she was SUPER excited when she found out that she could!

To prepare this activity I folded 4 sheets of red or pink paper in half and drew a half heart on the fold. I gave O the tray of paper and a pair of scissors, and she got to work. She cut along the line and then excitedly opened the paper to see her heart. She was surprised to see that she really had cut a heart! Now she wants to make a book out of her hearts, and I think that is a great idea :)

Counting Hearts

Yet another activity with the heart stickers! I gave O a bowl of heart stickers along with a stack of numbers. She put the numbers in order (she was confused by the zero...I need to incorporate a zero into our other number activities). She then counted out the correct number of hearts to go under each number. I was surprised by how easy this activity was for her, and I would have had her go up to 10 if I'd had more hearts :)

Valentine's Day Sensory Box

O and I had fun putting together her Valentine's Day Sensory box last week. I let her choose between oatmeal and rice, and she chose rice. This made it easy for me since I was able to borrow rice from the rice pit that is on our screened porch. I added in pink, red, and white pony beads, heart stickers, scoops, small cups, pom poms, and pipe cleaners (later I added a toilet paper roll). She wasn't interested in playing in the box for a day or 2, but then she started to enjoy it. She makes quite a mess with the rice, but that just gives her more opportunities to practice her sweeping skills.

Valentine's Day Spooning Activity

To complete this activity O spooned a marble into each heart on the silicone heart tray. She had a little difficulty balancing the marble on the spoon, but she enjoyed the challenge. We'll be doing more spooning activities in the future.

Valentine's Day Transferring Activities

Here is another simple Valentine's Day activity (anything pink or red is classified as a Valentine's Day Activity :).

This activity was more visually appealing than the one above, so I didn't even put the first one out. O picks up a pom pom with the tweezers and puts one pom pom in each opening. The tray came from IKEA. O really enjoyed this activity and has done it repeatedly.

Valentine's Day Activities

There are SO many activities that can be done with a bag (or 2) of foam heart stickers! These glittery heart stickers are from WM and cost 1 dollar.

Our first Valentine's Day activity was number sequencing with hearts. O was very excited and asked if she could do this activity every day :) To make the activity, I wrote the numbers (1 to 10) on the stickers using a black sharpie. She put the numbers in order using the number line as a guide.


The hearts are also great for sorting activities. First, she sorted the hearts by color.


Then she sorted them by size.

She also had fun making patterns with the hearts.

This one was another favorite! It just looks so pretty :)


We're really enjoying these Valentine's Day activities, and I hope you will, too!