Valentine Animals

What would Valentines Day be without making hearts? Let's use this occasion to share what's in our hearts. Have the kids make Valentines for shut-ins at nursing homes and local hospitals. The kids may also want to add a story to their card.

Materials
Red, pink, and white construction paper
Wiggly eyes
Pom-poms
Yarn
Glue
Scraps of material, lace, and construction paper
Clothes pins
Pipe cleaners
Directions

Provide patterns for different sizes of hearts. Have students take a large heart and fold it in half. First, we will make a "love" mouse. The folded edge is the bottom of your animal. The pointed end of the heart is your mouse's nose. Take little hearts for the ears. Use wiggly eyes and add yarn for a tail. For older students, you may want them to write a verse inside the heart, before they fold it in half. Now, we will make a butterfly. For this, we need another large heart. On the back side of the heart, glue a clothespin. On the front, glue lace or yarn down the middle. Make your butterfly beautiful by decorating with little hearts. Take a pipe cleaner and cut it in half. Twist the pipe cleaner so it is spiral shaped. Glue the two halves on your butterfly for its antenna. Your students can use their imagination to make cats, dogs, and birds.

Broken Hearts

Materials
10 hearts made out of construction paper
clear contact paper or laminate
marker
large red or white envelope

Directions
Laminate your hearts. If you do not have access to a laminator, cover with clear contact paper. Do this before you program the cut-outs. Cut your hearts in half. Write each word on a different heart or tooth.

in - tall - happy - cold - fast - over - heavy - last - up - bitter

On the other half of the hearts or teeth, write the following words:

out - short - sad - hot - slow - under - light - first - down - sweet

Now have your children/students match the correct hearts. You may want to do this with number recognition. For example on one heart you would write 3 on the matching heart you could place multiple of 3 say 9. In this way you can teach simple tables, multiplications etc.