Preschool Valentine and Heart Activities and Art

I know that technically yesterday was Valentine's Day, but many in our part of the US have been without power and out of school due to fierce winter storms. Our holiday celebrations have been postponed until later next week. We've decided to go ahead with them, since the kids were so excited and will be really let down if we have to miss them altogether. Since I know many place will be doing the same, I thought I'd go ahead and share the posts I'd originally planned to post about Valentine's Day before we lost power. 

We take advantage of seasonal materials when they come out--especially at the dollar store. I stocked up on heart shaped jewels, Valentine erasers, doilies, Valentine's cards, Conversation Heart candies and Valentine puzzles to put in the various centers in our class. 

The kids love playing with the erasers and jewels that I put in our math center. We do patterning counting matching and a wide variety of games with them. 

I drew a tic tac toe board on a few paper hearts and taught the kids how to play tic tac toe. It's easy to forget that with our digital age many children have never been exposed to it before. It'a a fun little game that is short enough to keep their interest, and can really hone those critical thinking skills!

We use Conversation heart candies in a variety of ways---we graph them, count the letters in them, sort by color, use them in science experiments and even paint with them! One of the ways we've used them this week is by using our magnifying glasses and doing letter hunts with them! The children have been busily writing their conversations from the hearts, comparing who has certain letters and finding letters from their names!

In our art center, we added some heart shaped paper and children free painted and practiced some new techniques, pressing the sides of the heart together to make symmetrical art.

Some kids just enjoyed drawing hearts and cutting them out with fancy scissors.

I bent some of our toilet paper tubes slightly to make heart shapes to dip in paint and stamp with. Some of them started stamping but ended up painting with the stamps as brushes.

Our one year old class made these cute hand and footprint cards for parents. So cute!

Of course we read lots of fun books about Valentine's Day! Here are some of our favorites:




I've added a new tab to the to of the page for books by theme. I'll be adding to this list as I go through the year! 

little illuminations: Books by Theme

If you are interested in more of our Valentine's activities, here are the links to some of my previous posts about our Valentine activities!

Valentine Bulletin Boards 2014

Valentine Fun in Pre-K

Valentine's Day Afterglow

Love Bugs

Our Valentine's Day Fun 2011

Conversation Hearts in The Class

Love Bugs 2011

Valentine's Box

Valentine's Day Fun

plus, look for the last 2 posts in later this week--one on Valentine Boxes and one about Valentine's Day fingerplays and flannelboards!

Be sure to check out my Valentine's Day board on Pinterest!





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TOP 10 of 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

It's been a wonderful year! I'd like to thank the readers here for taking time to read, comment, share and pin the posts here. I get so many of my classroom ideas from things other teachers share, and little illuminations provides me with a way for me to pay it forward (just a little) by sharing here. I am so thankful to get to know so many wonderful folks via the blogosphere and social media. I was even lucky enough to meet several bloggy buddies this year in person! (note to self: I still need to finish that post about the meet-ups at NAEYC!)

To start the year off, I thought I'd share some of your favorite posts. These are the Top 10 little illuminations posts from 2012!

   10.  Perky Penguins In Pre-K
    9.   Jump Rope For Heart
    8.   All in A Day's Play
    7.   Pet Week Play In Pre-K
    6.   Baby, It's Cold Outside
    5.   A Gift For Dad, A Book and A Bloghop
    4.   Discovery Bottle Inspiration
    3.   Cloudy With A Chance Of Weather
    2.   Making Literacy Connections With Our Names

 And DRUMROLL, please......  the NUMBER 1 post of 2012 is:

    1.   Signing In And Out Of Pre-K

In all honesty, posts about bulletin boards are year-round hits---the number of visits to those posts far outnumber any others. I didn't include them in the list above for that reason. I thought I'd include a list of the TOP 5 Bulletin Board posts of 2012 here:

     5.  Back To School Bulletin Boards...Redux
     4.  Spring Bulletin Boards
     3.  Dr. Seuss Bulletin Boards
     2.  Fabulous Fall Bulletin Boards
     1.  St. Patrick's Day Bulletin Boards

Now, you've seen what was popular on little illuminations. What was YOUR favorite little illuminations post in 2012? Please share it in the comments!


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Making Literacy Connections With Our Names

One of the ways I help students make literacy connections is helping them get to know their own names, as well of those of their class mates. This chart is so easy, and I let the kids help out with  making it, then display it all year at eye level. 

I give each student a piece of paper with their picture and name on it, with the first letter highlighted in a different color. I go through each letter of the alphabet and ask, "Does anyone have a name that starts with 'a'? I ask all the students with "a" to come forward and paste their name next to a large letter "A".  We continue through the alphabet until everyone has had a turn to put their name on the chart.

I find that the students often refer to the chart as the year progresses, comparing letters and checking the spelling of friends' names. I occasionally come up with little games and activities using the chart, as well.


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Travel Activities to Keep Kids Engaged

Today on PreK + K Sharing, I'm sharing a few ideas to help keep the kids engaged on trips. There is also a FREEBIE available to print! 


Travel Activities For Kids....and a freebie!

Cloudy With A Chance of Weather

We've just completed our weather unit and we've tried some really neat things! We recorded the weather each day for a week.

We wrote "weather words" in our journals and even illustrated the pictures.

One of my students gave me these wonderful weather wheels for Christmas. We colored the wheels and put them together, then used them in our circle time weather watching activities.

The publishers over at Scholastic's "Clifford The Big Red Dog" preschool classroom magazines sent us a class supply of the weather issue to try out. We used them as a small group activity, reading together and doing the activity on the back. We especially enjoyed the rainbow, as we've been learning about the colors that comprise a rainbow. Thank you, "Clifford The Big Red Dog" magazine, and especially, Janice, for sharing these with us! We really enjoyed them!

We tried some really cool experiments to simulate weather and cloud processes. This experiment allowed use to see how clouds fill and then rain falls.

This experiment helped us "see" condensation and rain.

We made some cloud murals after reading "It Looked Like Spilt Milk".

We found a way to incorporate some movement in with our weather activities. The teacher calls out a weather word, and the students have to "be the weather"!

Here are some of our favorite weather themed books:

 

 

 



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