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Easy Sensory Activities for Valentine’s Day

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Sensory activities are fun all the time, but it’s extra fun to give yourself the challenge of making them to go with holidays, seasons and themes.

When my daughter was younger I had a lot of fun making her a Valentine’s Day themed sensory box with all sorts of textures and little things to play with.  (Also: chocolate playdough. So much fun.)

Here are some more great ideas for sensory bins and projects you can make with and for little ones, whether for your own kid at home or a small group in a preschool classroom.

Sensory bottles are a great choice for a group of kids, because they aren’t messy and you can do several so a few kids can use them at once. Get some ideas from Pocket of Preschool.

This sensory painting idea using shaving cream is so fun to do any time. Get all the details from Learning and Exploring through Play.

Making a potion station is another fun (but messy) activity that little ones love. Here’s an outline of how to do it from Engaging Littles.

And while we’re talking about classic sensory stuff, how about some fizzing hearts? Little Bins for Little Hands has the how-to.

And Next Comes L has a fun idea for a sensory bin base that I never tried in my time of sensory box building: chickpeas! You can dye them just like you might have done with rice or pasta, and they make an inexpensive and fun base for a sensory bin. Or here’s one with rice, from Pre-K Pages.

If you’re looking for more scented stuff to play with, And Next Comes L also has a great recipe for cinnamon-scented cloud dough (remember those little hot heart shaped cinnamon candies?) which is great for Valentine’s Day or winter.

[Photo: Engaging Littles.]

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Earth Day Printables and Activities

I know doing printables for Earth Day doesn’t sound very eco friendly, but it does give you a chance to talk to kids about how you can make the classroom or the home a little greener by only printing what you need, using low ink or only black and white printing, printing on the back of other pages, using recycled paper and recycling what you can when you are done.

These Earth Day printables help kids learn about Earth Day or use earth designs.

Pre-K Pages has Earth Day math printables, including a dice rolling game with a recycling theme, graphing, number grouping and sequencing activities.

123 Homeschool 4 Me has a variety of printables for Earth Day including writing prompts, plant life cycle worksheets and links to other activities.

A Dab of Glue will Do has a little printable emergent reader book that explores the basics of Earth Day and some things we can all do to be kind to the planet. You can print it in color or black and white and have kids color it themselves.

Speaking of coloring pages, Preschool Mom has a collection of coloring pages with color versions that you can use as posters in the classroom as well as having kids color the black and white ones.

I love all the printable hands on activities from Differentiated Kindergarten, which help kids build fine motor skills with an Earth Day twist. You’ll find printable mats for use with playdough, geo boards, snap cubes, pattern blocks and Legos, as well as a Q-tip painting activity. You can get these when you sign up for emails.

Here are a few more quick printable Earth Day activities for your kiddos:

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