Get Smart this Valentine's Day!
Valentine’s Day gets a bad rap for being a “hallmark holiday”, but it can truly be a great opportunity to share loving messages and memorable moments with the ones you care about. It can also be a chance to mix love and affection with brains and education!
Often Valentine’s Day treats and activities are centered around candy, flowers, or short-n’-sweet poems, but we’ve gathered a list of V-day activities that will celebrate love and friendship, while keeping the kids learning and practicing valuable skills.
Valentine Sudoku Puzzles- In traditional Sudoku, the player tries to arrange each digit between numbers 1-9 so it appears only once within the same column, row, and 3x3 grid within a 9x9 game board. These Sudoku puzzles from giftoscuriosity.com have been shrunk to 4x4 boards to make them the perfect size for young children. Each one uses 4 different Valentine-themed icons, and children must decide where they should put each symbol in order to complete the game board. This is a great way for younger children to work on recognizing and completing patterns and to practice solving puzzles! To print, click here.
Color by Numbers Valentines- Color-by-number activities are great for younger kids, because they give them needed practice with following directions, using fine motor kills, and recognizing patterns. Rust and Shine has turned this activity into a fun way to spread Valentine cheer. Kids begin to see how shapes and colors can work together abstractly to create a bigger picture, and they are always excited to see the end result (which in that case reveals a cute picture or message to match the valentine note on the back!)Print some just for your kids, or to give to the whole class! To view and print click here.
Heart Math Puzzles- This is a fun and easy way to get kids practicing math and it can be adjusted to the math skill-level of the child. Cut out heart shapes about the size of your hand on white paper or cardstock (using a stencil is helpful so they are all the same shape). Cut the hearts in half down the center, and cut the right half again horizontally (There will now be 3 parts to each heart). On the large left half of the heart, write the final answer to the math problem, and on the top and bottom sections of the right half write 2 different equations that equal the number on the matching left half. Ex. Right side top: 8+1 Right side bottom: 6+3 Left side: 9. For more difficult puzzles, Right side top: 15 – 6 Ride side bottom: 3 x3 Left Side: 9. The kids will have to match the 3 pieces together to complete each heart.
Make a “Love Potion” Smoothie- Have the kids help you to first create a recipe, deciding what they would like to have in the “love potion” smoothie. Ingredients such as fresh or frozen fruits, milk, yogurt, vanilla, chocolate chips, food coloring, cinnamon and ice cubes are great possible ingredients for them to choose from. After you have a recipe for your potion, have the kids practice measuring and counting out each ingredient, stirring them together in a bowl (you can add it all into the blender, but it’s good motor skills practice to have them stir all the thick ingredients together.) Measuring and following recipes is great practice with fractions, portions, and following directions carefully. The final result will be cool and sweet, and they can share their “love potion” (or friendship potion!) with friends and family!
Matching Heart Cards- This is a great activity if, like many of us, you have a surplus of not-quite-complete decks of playing cards lying around the house. You just need to gather all of the cards of the suit of Hearts and cut them in half horizontally. Mix them up and let kids match them back up together again to complete the right cards. This activity is even more fun and tricky if you have multiple decks to use cards from, so that there may be more than one of each card and they have to work harder to match the correct set.
These are just a few ideas for how to add a dose of education into fun holiday activities. You and your children can share more than sugar and affection this Valentine’s Day - you can share a love of learning together!