Why have I chosen Valentine’s Day activities for the children?
You may wonder why I chose this topic for the kids activities? I create items that can be gifted for Valentine’s Day and our children have been asking what the day is all about.
Most people associate Valentine’s Day with the celebration of romantic love between couples but in countries like Estonia and Finland, February 14th is actually a day to celebrate friendships and love in general. With this in mind, Valentine’s Day brings about an opportunity to teach my children about showing love, compassion, kindness and generosity to others, may that be their school friends, family or a neighbour.
The school holidays also coincide with Valentine’s Day and I need to keep them busy! It’s a little fun celebration between New Year and Easter with some opportunities to learn about the world.
Why teach them using craft activities?
Crafting is my passion, we all enjoy working on projects and we have plenty of raw materials around to inspire the children to create but they can also learn a lot through crafting. Craft activities use a variety of learning styles, for example visual, auditory & tactile learning, and each of us has a natural preference to specific learning styles. So crafting for me is an obvious way to help my children learn, especially as I have children of different ages and each prefer different learning styles.
These are some skills children can learn through craft:
| Motor Skills | Language |
| Maths | Creativity |
| Problem solving | Mental growth |
| Self expression | Self esteem |
| Coping with feelings | Bonding with others & teamwork |
| Building confidence | Patience |
| Concentration | Planning |
| Organising | Decision making |
| Evaluation | Social skills |
Skills children can acquire through craft activitiesI thought I would share with you the ideas I have found in this post, so you can just click on my pinterest boards and see the ideas for yourself.
They range from card and gift making ideas to easy recipes for kids. Having kids aged 4 and 7, I needed to find some super easy and some more advanced ideas so there is something for both ages to enjoy.
Here is my Pinterest board for Valentine’s Day card making ideas, there are 10 in total to try from pom pom printing to printables for younger children to colour in.
The children can make cards for parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins, friends or a neighbour.
Click image to go to card making ideas for kids
10 Ideas for decorations children can make for Valentine’s Day, including sun catchers and mobiles. The children can make and use the decorations ready for a special Valentine’s Day family meal. This is a lovely way to have a mini celebration in between New Year and Easter. (see recipes further down).
Ten decorations for children to make
Here are 15 gift ideas kids can make for Valentine’s Day to give to friends, family or neighbours including lollipop stick photo frames, canvas art, jewellery and keepsake projects.
click image above to see 15 gift ideas
These activities are great for not only entertainment value but also encourage creativity and improve motor skills too.
Click the image to go my board with 20 activities listed
Cooking with our children is great opportunity to introduce and learn about new foods and create healthy habits but cookery also teaches life skills, builds self esteem, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, maths, science, language, creativity & teamwork skills, and above all cooking is fun!
There are a selection of sweet and savoury treats that can be made for your mini celebration at home.
15 Valentine’s Day treats to make with kids
And now to try them out….
I’m going to let the children choose which of the 70 activities above they want to do and I’ll take some photos to post on my on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and I’d love to see your creations too so why not follow me and join in the fun. Or you can comment below and let me know how your Valentine’s projects went or make some suggestions of your own.
I hope you all have lots of fun creating and learning and the same time.
If you like this blog post… you don’t have to but… it would make my day if you could please share it or link back to this post. Thank you. x
à bientôt
Natalie
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