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Valentine’s Day Activities Using Hearts

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There are so many different classroom activities you can do around Valentine’s Day, from STEM activities to art projects and math activities.

I wasn’t sure how to share more ideas this year than I already have, but I thought for this one I would just share activities of various sorts that involve heart shapes.

For example, this color sorting heart game from Mason Jar of Memories. You can do it with the printables and buckets as shown, or cut hearts out of construction paper and have a larger heart of the same color somewhere in the room so kids have to go to a different place in the room for each color. That makes it a bit of a scavenger hunt to find the hearts and put them in the right place.

Another way to get little ones moving with a Valentine’s theme is playing musical hearts. This idea is from No Time for Flash Cards, and in involves writing different actions on hearts the kids walk on. When the music stops they do what their heart says.

If you scroll down in this post from Mrs. Plemons’ Kindergarten you’ll find another use for big hearts kids can step on: write the letters of the alphabet and do a musical alphabet hearts game, where the child identifies the letter. (You can also use them for an alphabet scavenger hunt, which you’ll also find in this post.)

Or you can put numbers on them and have kids match the number to another heart with that number represented in dots (or hearts, or whatever you want) like in this idea from Active Littles. Kids can also cut out the hearts (or you can do it for them) and use them to help them learn how to count to 20. This one is form Happy Toddler Playtime.

I guess we’re going to need some foam hearts for all these fun heart shaped activities!

Have you read?

Book Review: The Festival of Lights

As if Diwali weren’t colorful and fun enough, The Festival of Lights: A Lift-the-flap Diwali Celebration by Namita Moolani Mehra, illustrated by Darshika Varm, makes it even more fun to read about with flaps and things to lift and pull to see more information or details in the illustrations. 

The book is a story about a family getting ready for Diwali and what happens on the different days of the five-day celebration. There’s cleaning, shopping, crafting, food preparation and getting the home altar ready for the big day. 

It covers decorating the outside of the house with rangoli, diyas and lanterns, buying sweets to share with family and friends, the sights and scents of the mandir (home temple), getting dressed up in new fancy clothes, the story of Diwali and celebrations with relatives.  

Flaps (there are more than 140 in all) give you vocabulary words for different foods and definitions, as well as fun things like what’s inside the shopping basket or where the cat is hanging out. They also help illuminate the story of Diwali, which is the triumph of good over evil as Lord Ram defeated the demon Ravana to save his wife, Sita. 

This pretty and colorful book helps kids understand what Diwali is and how it is celebrated, regardless of whether they practice it at home. This would be a nice book to keep in a classroom (it’s rated for kids ages 3-7) or to have at home to teach kids about Diwali even if it’s not something you celebrate. Where I live there are a lot of people from India so we are probably exposed to Diwali more than some other regions of America, but it’s a nice holiday to know about wherever you live. 

Combine with the book Diwali and check out some fun lantern crafts and printables for kids to round out your experience. 

About the book: 24 pages, hardcover, published 2025 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail prices $22.99.

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