Month of Love

Let's just start off by saying, these girls are ready for Valentines Day and have been for several weeks!!!

We by no means did anything tricky or special for Valentine art this year.  In fact, I even was able to reuse our sensory table from last year and they loved it just as much if not more now that they are older. You can see it here. Now that I've gone back to work teaching preschool I try to keep it simple but fun and we've been super busy talking about this love month!  We "Loved Daddy to Pieces," Made handprint hearts, A wall of love (wrote things we love on individual hearts made out of scrapbook paper and then decorated them) , and simple cookie cutter paint art.  

Then our favorite art activity of all was our "K is for kisses" art.  I actually put lipstick on the girls and then let them kiss all over the paper. Super cute and fun!

Yes, it is impossible to get a 23 month old to sit still for applying lipstick...

Have a very Happy Valentines Day!!!

Chocolate play doh cookies

I got the idea to make chocolate play doh from the blog I follow and love so dearly "Counting Coconuts."  I used to have an old recipe that I followed for making homemade plah doh but have since started using the recipe she uses as well found here  http://countingcoconuts.blogspot.com/2011/02/homemade-playdough-recipe-notes.html.  For the chocolate, I just added in some cocoa mix to the recipe and I had to do some brown food coloring as well to make them actually LOOK like chocolate.  =)  So yummy, you really do almost want to eat them!  Just make sure you're little ones don't (although it won't hurt them since it's all baking ingredients, but not yummy!  Trust me, I've tried just for the heck of it!)

Heart Sun Catchers

Pony beads, cookie cutter, and some glue is all you need for this cute craft.  Put all the beads you want, however you want in a cookie cutter.  Pour on the glue (Big K's favorite part).  Let dry (this takes quite awhile to dry all the way through).  Then when you take the cutter away, you have a beautiful heart sun catcher you can place in the window.  This was by far my favorite Valentines Day decoration.  Unfortunately I forgot to get the "after" picture in the window.  Guess you'll just have to trust me that it was super cute. 

"Sweet Treats" sensory table

Materials Inside:

Pink tulle

Red pipe cleaners twisted together (licorice)
play candy hearts felt lollipops
play felt food (dollar bin at target 2/$1!)
cake and doughnut erasers
old empty m&m container.

Who doesn't want a big bin of pretend cake and candy to play and imagine in?

I made this sensory bin for the girls during the month of February since candy sort of goes along with valentines day. I (with the sewing assistance of my mother in law) homemade the little lollipops. Aren't they adorable? And soooo easy! Cut some circles out of felt, fill with some batting, sew together with a tiny opening left at the bottom for the stick, then hot glue on the Popsicle stick and any embellishments you prefer and wallah! You've got yourself some scrumptious lollipops!

Valentines Day Sensory Tub

Materials Inside:

Red crinkly paper

Foam hearts

pink balloons

heart measuring cups (dollar bin at target)

doilies

beaded heart necklaces

small pink heart rocks

homemade felt hearts.

Close up of my hearts I (again with the assistance of my mother in law) made.

The idea here obviously is to just keep everything red and pink! My girls loved it!

Button Hearts

What child doesn't want an excuse for using glue?  And what Mommy doesn't like the look of buttons?  A simple craft we did this Valentines Day was glue some buttons onto a heart.  I cut a heart out of scrapbook paper, then attached it to some cardboard to make it more sturdy so that when she was done she could make it a door hanger on her bedroom door.
So cute!