Whether or not you celebrate Valentine’s Day, little kids are bound to notice the cards, heart-shaped chocolates and red-roses that are unusually well-stocked in shops this week.
The ideas below will help you turn this Hallmark holiday into a valuable opportunity to teach kids about loving themselves, and giving and receiving love, rather than presents.
MOVE
- Ask your kids one place they would LOVE to go this week. It might be their favourite park or play centre in the Shire. It might involve a short road trip or a train ride into the city. If it happens to be a rather outlandish request (like America) then ask them what they’d love to see or do at those places and see if you can find a local destination that will fulfil their needs (like an American-style diner).
- OR take them to a place you love and really make a point of telling them what you love about it and why.
- Wherever you go, use rocks, sticks and leaves to make hearts for someone else to find and talk about the idea of paying it forward.
- Head to love and kindness yoga
MAKE
- These little love bugs are a cinch to make and would be a cute little gift.
- Encourage kids to think of someone they love who they don’t get to see often and make a card for them to let them know we love them and are thinking of them. Two of our favourite no-fuss card ideas for pre-schoolers are potato stamp hearts and wax drawings with watercolours.
- These DIY heart tote bags are simple and sweet.
- Baking doesn’t get any easier than these cinnamon puff pastry hearts. You can also layer them and try whatever fillings you have on hand like jam, chocolate melts or ham and cheese.
PLAY
- Explain the 5 love languages (Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Personal Touch) and follow along with the activities that help demonstrate each one.
- Young kids will enjoy this simple heart matching puzzle.
- Build your child’s fine motor skills with this heart lacing activity.
- This sweet heart game encourages kids to point out what they love about other people.
READ
- “Guess how much I love you” by Sam McBratney
- “The I love you book” by Todd Parr,
- “The Shape of My Heart” by Mark Sperring
- “Love you forever” by Robert Munsch
- “The Big Book of Love” by Laurence Anholt
LISTEN
Spotify Playlists:
Spotify recently released Spotify Kids, which Premium Family subscribers have access to and it contains a great Valentine’s Day playlist. You can also access the following playlists for free:
-
- Love songs for kids (Spotify)
- Love Yourself Mix (Spotify)
- Valentine’s Day Classroom Playlist
- Valentine’s Day for Preschool Children
Podcasts:
- The Love Potion (Stories podcast)
WATCH
- Elmo Loves You (Stan or Netflix)
- True and the Rainbow Kingdom Ep: Happy Hearts Day (Netflix)
- Carebears (Netflix)
- Gnomeo and Juliet (Netflix or Google Play)
- Beauty and the Beast (Disney +)
- Shrek (Disney +)
- Forky Asks a Question Ep: What is Love (Disney +)
- Pete the Cat: A Very Groovy Valentine’s Day (Amazone Prime)
Thanks for following along this week. We hope you LOVED every minute of it.
And we’d love to see which activities you enjoyed so please tag @mumsoftheshire on Instagram and use #BusyKids so we can share them with our community.
Still looking for something to do? Here you’ll find our back catalogue of Busy Kids articles or try checking out some other things to do.
