Valentine’s Day crafts and games are a wonderful way to celebrate the holiday in your daycare! Whether the children in your care are making cards or hunting for hears, Valentine’s Day offers many ways for young learners to communicate feelings of love, kindness and friendship.
Let’s take a look at four crafts and games to help you celebrate the day of love!
1. Valentine’s Day Box Decorating
Materials: Craft paper, markers, stickers, glitter, glue, scissors, heart-shaped cutouts, ribbons.
Activity: Give each child with a box such as a shoe box and let them decorate it with a variety of materials. They can use stickers, markers and cut-out hearts to create their own personalized Valentine’s Day mailboxes. These will be used for the Valentine’s card exchange later. You can encourage them to write their names on the boxes to personalize them!
2. Heart Stamping Craft
Materials: Sponges, heart-shaped cookie cutters, paint, paper.
Activity: Dip heart-shaped sponges into red or pink paint and help children stamp them onto a sheet of paper. You can also let them use heart-shaped cookie cutters as stamps for a different texture. Encourage them to decorate their cards with stickers or small drawings for extra flair.
3. Make Valentine’s Day Cards
Materials: Construction paper, crayons, markers, stickers, scissors, glue.
Activity: Help children make simple Valentine’s Day cards for their friends or family. Provide heart-shaped templates or let them draw their own hearts. Add stickers, stamps or even little notes of affection like “You’re my friend” or “I love you.”
They can give these cards to classmates, teachers or parents as a sweet gesture.
And if you’re looking for other crafts, check out our blog with three Valentine’s Day activities that teach science lessons!
4. “Heart Hunt” Game
Materials: Paper or foam hearts (small and large), stickers or prizes.
Preparation: Before the game, hide several small paper or foam hearts around the party area. Some hearts can have stickers or tiny treats attached to them as surprises.
How to Play: Explain to the children that they are going on a “heart hunt” to find all the hidden hearts around the room. Set a timer or give them a specific amount of time (5 to 10 minutes) to search for hearts. When they find a heart, they can bring it to you for a small prize like a sticker or a piece of candy.
After all the hearts are found, you can do a quick show-and-tell to talk about the hearts including their color, size and shape. Give each child a little prize or a treat for participating.
This game promotes teamwork, searching skills and excitement as the children run around and discover hearts hidden all around.
Share the Love with Real-Time Photos and Videos!
Parents like getting crafts, but they love keeping up to date with what their kids are doing in real time!
With the Procare child care mobile app, you can keep families involved by showing them their children’s day-to-day activities (such as making Valentine’s Day crafts!) through photos and videos.
Procare’s robust child care management solution has enhanced family engagement functionality and through the child care mobile app, you can immerse parents into their children’s day-to-day activities.
You can share daily activities, videos, photos and newsletters with parents. Plus, you can use the app for easy, two-way communication and keep parents engaged with calendars to promote upcoming events!