Holidays

LOVE Handprint Valentine

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February 14, 2021 by Stacy Leave a Comment

Make a quick and easy valentine with the free LOVE Handprint Valentine printable. Print the template and add a little handprint. Perfect for child cares and preschools to make for parent gifts on Valentine’s Day!

Parents will love seeing their child’s little handprint and save it for years to come. As a child care provider, I appreciate that it’s so easy to make but still looks amazing.

See all of my free printables here >> Free Printables from Share & Remember

We used red tempera paint for the handprint and then added a foam heart sticker to the palm of the print.

I personalized ours with a printed “Happy Valentine’s Day! Love, (name).

LOVE Handprint Template

Love-Handprint-Valentine-Printable-Template Download

Valentine Cards Kids Can Make

Ice Cream Counting 1-10

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February 4, 2021 by Stacy Leave a Comment

It’s that time of the year for all things sweet including these ice cream counting 1-10 printable pages! The following free math and counting printables are flexible and can be used in multiple ways. Create individual sticker books for each child or use them as counting mats in a math center.

Valentine Ice Cream Counting 1-10 Printable Math Mats & Sticker Counting Books

Ice Cream Counting 1-10 Sticker Counting Books & Math Mats

Kids can’t resist these adorable ice cream counting printables and teachers will love that they can be used in multiple ways. You may want to print and laminate the pages to use in a math center. The children can use a dry erase marker to trace the numbers and manipulatives to count out the number for each ice cream treat.

Manipulatives for Counting Mats

If you use the Ice Cream Counting 1-10 printables to create math mats, you will need some small manipulatives to use for counting on the ten frames. The frames are rather small. Suggestions for math manipulatives:

Kids love stamps! They could use valentine stamps to mark the number of spots on the grid.

Another option for this printable is to print individual booklets for each child. I’d recommend printing two per page so each page is half sheet.

Sticker booklets from Dollar Tree or Michael’s are perfect for counting the correct number of “toppings” for the ice cream.

Finding the perfect sticker to choose next for their ice cream engaged my preschoolers and encouraged them to count.

See all of my free printables here >> Free Printables from Share & Remember

Along with counting the stickers, we can see fine motor skills in action as the children peeled stickers and traced the numbers.

10 Pages of Ice Cream Counting Fun

Each ice cream page is a different “flavor” – all enticing! Which is your favorite?

Ice Cream Counting 1-10 pages were created with Valentine’s Day in mind but they could certainly be used for a summer theme as well.

Who else loves Instagram?!
If you try this activity please take a photo and tag @shareandremember! I’d love to connect with you!

More Valentine Activities

Sorting Hearts Light Table Activity

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February 4, 2021 by Stacy Leave a Comment

The light table might be my most challenging center to come up with ideas for. I love my light table but finding inexpensive creative resources for various themes and holidays isn’t easy. I’m always on the lookout for translucent items that will capture children’s interest and provide a playful, educational experience. Check out this sorting hearts light table activity.

Sorting Hearts Light Table Activity

The items pictured for my Valentine’s Day light table center:

My mini ice cube tray was a thrift store find but I can’t find any place where they can be purchased currently. Any ice cube tray will work.

playing with hearts on the light table in preschool

Some skills children work on while playing with the hearts and containers include fine motor skills, sorting colors, counting, learning the heart shape, one to one correspondence by putting the hearts into the trays. Children also explore concepts like full, empty, and pouring.

Heart Shapes in Preschool

Try some of these fun heart-shaped activities in preschool. Make little heart pillows with paper or fabrics. It could even be a little hand warmer heart! Little hands like to make yarn wrapped hearts and make the best handprint heart valentines or Heart Full of Love Handprints. Melty Hearts are a perfect valentine craft for school-agers. Toddlers enjoy making Valentine Tissue Paper Hearts Collages.

If you have children under 3 years of age as I do, I allow them to play with the sorting hearts when I’m directly supervising, otherwise, I put them up when I’m working with other children or making meals, etc. Of course, older children can still put small things in their mouths so supervise and use your good judgment of what is best.

More Valentine Ideas

Also try adding heart shaped cookie cutters or creating valentine letters.

Valentine Rice Sensory Bin

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February 3, 2021 by Stacy 5 Comments

Make a Valentine rice sensory bin for your little ones to explore for Valentine’s Day. This post will give you inspiration for making your own Valentine sensory bin, how to make dyed rice, and ideas of what tools and accessories to add to your bin.

Valentine Rice Sensory Bin

Preschool sensory table activity for Valentine's Day

Making Dyed Rice

Making dyed rice is quick and easy! The colors come out so amazing. It’s fun to make different color combinations for various themes.

Here are the supplies and directions to dye some rice for your sensory bin:

Supplies Needed:

4 cups of rice
2 TBS of coloring
2 TBS of rubbing alcohol

Directions:

Pour all into a Ziploc bag and mix until fully colored.
Pour the rice out onto a tray and leave to dry in the sun or in the oven on low for a few minutes until it is completely dry.

The color does not come off the rice and stain the kid’s hands. Save your rice to use year after year!

The colors are enticing! Can’t wait to play!

Sensory Bin Tools and Accessories

Here is a list of suggestions for tools and accessories to add to your bin with lines to Amazon if you need help finding them:

heart-shaped cookie cutters
foam heart shapes
heart jewels
pieces of stringed beads
bowls
long-handled spoons
heart-shaped boxes
heart ice cube tray
acrylic mini hearts
measuring cup
slime charms
small scoops (formula scoops are the best!)

Isn’t it messy??

Yep, it’s messy. It can be very messy yet there are so many benefits to sensory play that I deal with the mess so we can have it out.
I let them play with guidelines and supervision, and then we clean it up. Sometimes we put the lids on the table and take a break from it for a while.

Toddlers can be really messy in the sensory bin but they are learning. I teach them that sensory stuff stays in the sensory bin.

May I also suggest a Roomba! It does a good job vacuuming with sand – not quite as well with rice but it does work. Another idea is to use a large sheet or towel under the table to collect most of the sensory bin material that falls to make clean up a bit easier.

Usually, we have only two friends at a time at this table and they take turns.

Make the rules clear and be consistent. If they don’t listen or things get out of hand, we clean it up and take a break for a while.

The boys working in the bin show below spent at least an hour playing. They said they were “organizing”. I love it!

Little charms are exciting to hunt for through the rice!

Be sure to check out some of my other bins: Dinosaur Sensory Bins, Tadpole Sensory Bin, Fill the Silo Sensory Bin, and Sensory Bin + Puzzle.

More Valentine’s Day Activities

Candy Cane Letters

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December 29, 2020 by Stacy Leave a Comment

There’s so much fun and excitement around the holiday months at preschool, it’s easy to forget to incorporate the alphabet. It’s important to continue letter work and what better way than creating candy cane letters! This post includes a free alphabet printable template.

Candy Cane Letters - Share & Remember - free printable alphabet letters

Candy Cane Letters Alphabet Work

Preschoolers can choose the letter of their name or use your focus letters for the month to create candy cane letters.

For this simple activity, you just need a few supplies and the prep work is quick and easy.

Supplies:

Candy Cane Letters Alphabet TemplateDownload

Printed Alphabet Templates
Red and white construction paper
Glue or glitter glue

Preschoolers practice alphabet letters and AB patterns during the holidays with this simple letter activity.

My group enjoys using glitter glue so it worked well to use with this project to give our letters and icy wintery look.

There you go! A fun and festive way to work on letter identification during the holidays!

Did you try this activity?

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LOVE Handprint Valentine

See all of my free printables here >> Free Printables from Share & Remember

LOVE Handprint Template

Valentine Cards Kids Can Make

Ice Cream Counting 1-10

Ice Cream Counting 1-10 Sticker Counting Books & Math Mats

Manipulatives for Counting Mats

See all of my free printables here >> Free Printables from Share & Remember

10 Pages of Ice Cream Counting Fun

More Valentine Activities

Sorting Hearts Light Table Activity

Sorting Hearts Light Table Activity

Heart Shapes in Preschool

More Valentine Ideas

Valentine Rice Sensory Bin

Valentine Rice Sensory Bin

Making Dyed Rice

Sensory Bin Tools and Accessories