This Week's Creative Play
Every week, you can expect a roundup of Creative Play activities for your littles here on the blog. The majority of the activities for this week have to do with Valentine's Day, one of my favorite holidays. These activities foster independence and creativity and may give you a chance to fold that laundry, or maybe just lay down for a minute.
For the activity above you will need (Everything can be found at Michaels or Amazon).
Watercolor Heart Cards:
- Watercolor Paper for painting and folding into cards (you could also use construction paper for the card part)
- Watercolors, either from a palette or watercolor tubes that you mix with water
- Paint Brushes
- Glue Stick or Glue Bottle
- Mod Podge to seal hearts (optional)
This is a 2-3 part activity. We did this in three days, but you could easily do it all in one day, just break it up. On a few pieces of watercolor paper, your child can paint their heart out. I gave the kids 2 colors to chose from, so we wouldn't have to worry about color mixing as much . The next day, Caroline used her heart hole punch to punch out the hearts (Charlie doesn't have the hand strength to do this on his own yet). On the third day, she and Charlie glued the hearts onto the cards. That's it! Then, they decorated the inside to give as valentine's to their teachers.
Valentine's Beans Scooping/Letter Search:
Beans are my by far, my favorite kind of sensory activity. They are cheap, easy to clean up and can be used for so many different activities Charlie can scoop the beans into the compartments and Caroline can scoop/find the letters + place them on an alphabet puzzle.
- IKEA Compartment Tray
- 2 Beans of your Choice
- Measuring Spoons, Scoopers
- Wooden Letters from Target $ Section
This chalk paper is so cool! I cut it into fourths and set oil pastels out with it. You could also use chalk. The kids made a design of their choosing and the feel of the pastels on the chalk paper was so fun for them.
Stacking, Building, Pretend Play with Grimm's Wooden Building Blocks Set.
We've had these wooden blocks for a few years and I love to see how the kids use them. They can stack them to make a tower, play pretend, use them to count/measure etc. This is a complete open-ended activity.
The ABC's of Yoga for Kids by Teresa Anne Power
I've had this book for years and used it quite often when I was teaching Preschool/1st grade. The book uses illustrations/poems to showcase various yoga positions. You could do this with your child, or have them do it independently if they're older. They also have these learning cards and a poster that goes along with the book.
If you do these activities, please share them with me. I'd love to see what your child does with them. Be on the lookout next Monday for my next set of activities.
