Valentine's Party!

Today was our Valentine's Day Party in pre-k!

The craft I love the most of any we do is hand prints.

Can you imagine having a bunch of these and making a t-shirt quilt for your kiddo with his hand prints all over it??

To make these shirts, we fold each shirt with a piece of paper in between the front and back of the shirt so that the paint doesn't leak through to the backside of the shirt.  That also gives us a place to write the kiddos names.  Place a small heart on the shirt, where the middle of the palm is going to sit, and paint their cute, chubby little hand red.  (We use acrylic paint so that it will be permanent.)

Center their hand over the heart and push...make sure that you press hard enough to get complete coverage.

Lift the hand directly up...and VOILA!  Cute hand print!

Leave the heart on the shirt until the paint is dry so it doesn't leak under the edges.

And when you remove the heart...you have this!  Precious!

We printed off the "Blowing you Kisses" topper HERE...

And we bought the little bottles of bubble at the dollar store in packs of 6 (they were the wedding bubbles.)

We made good use of our construction paper and cut out a bunch of red and pink hearts...

...and the kids glued them onto white lunch sacks to make a simple Valentine's Box.

At the end of the day...parents came and we played a game of Valentine Bingo.  We got the free download from Jamie over at 

The Crafting Chicks.

Finally (whew!) each kiddo decorated their own heart shaped cookie (from Costco) with pink frosting (spread with craft sticks) and topped with conversation hearts.

Now I'm ready to go fall into a sugar coma!  

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all!

XOXOX, Andrea

Number Matching Game

Today we played an extra-fun numbers matching game...we used hearts because of Valentine's Day...but we plan on using them over and over, because we LOVE numbers!  :)

First, cut out the hearts by folding construction paper in half and using our staple method to cut them evenly.  We cut 12...but are going to add more, up to 20 for now, and then maybe up to 30.

Cut the hearts in half:

Pick your numbers out, as well as stickers for the picture part of it.

Put the numbers on the right side of the heart, and the number amount of stickers on the other side.

We laminated them, so they'll last!

We sat in a circle and gave each kiddo one of the left side of the heart...they needed to count the objects and know how many there were...then, when it was their turn, they chose the corresponding number and put the heart together.

This is great for visual learners who need to see to learn...and also a great way for them to associate an amount with a number.

The kids loved this fun game!!  :)

Valentine "Love Bug" and Yummy KISS cookie recipe

Today we started off the new week with a new letter...V...and it's even more fun that V is for Valentine.

In circle time this morning, while we were talking about the words that we know that start with "v..." violin, vest, van, vulture, vampire...when one of the kiddos came up with soap.  No, sorry bud, soap doesn't start with "V."  His response?  Yes, we have a bottle and it's a vampire and it's "hanitizer" soap.  Well, when you put it that way, who can argue???

So...here is a step by step of today's Valentine, a LOVE BUG complete with a v-shaped mouth.

First, gather your red and pink construction paper, red or pink pipe cleaners, big googly eyes and glue.  We printed a handwriting practice sheet to glue it to that said "V is for Valentine."

Fold a few pieces of red paper in half, draw a half-heart on one side.

Use our awesome trick and staple around the edges so you can cut it out without slippage.

Do the same thing with the pink paper to cut out the "V" shapped mouths.

Now cut out small pink and red hearts, for the nose and the hearts at the end of the antenna.  

Assembly...glue on the large red heart, the mouth, nose and googly eyes, then the antenna and end with the hearts at the end of the antenna.

Pretty darn cute...and the kids loved them and were all so excited to give their moms a Valentine!

And as an added bonus?  It was baking day today, so we made peanut butter cookies and topped each one with a Kiss!

You can get the super yummy and easy peanut butter cookie recipe HERE on Janette's cooking blog.

Enjoy!!  :)