Valentine’s Day Activities

Integrated Learning Strategies (ILS) is a learning and academic center. As a reminder, ILS is not a health care provider and none of our materials or services provide a diagnosis or treatment of a specific condition or learning challenge you may see in your child or student. If you seek a diagnosis or treatment for your child or student, please contact a trained professional who can provide an evaluation of the child.

Red and pink is everywhere. Hearts of all shapes and sizes line the walls of every store, school hallway and home. It is that time of year where all ages celebrate the meaning of love. Adults go out on special dates, while children get to share their Valentine’s love a little differently.

Traditionally, the heart has been the symbol of Valentine’s Day. The heart is the seat of all human emotions and feelings.  As such, the gifting from the heart signifies the selfless act of giving to someone we love.

As children, we wanted nothing more than to express our love to our friends and family, which is the same for our children today. And, with it, comes great benefits. Participating in any kind of Valentine’s craft increases a child’s creativity, motor skills, and can help them strengthen their reading, writing, spelling and comprehension skills.

When I was young, I always looked forward to Valentine’s Day. My sisters and I would get out “the valentine craft box” which consisted of construction paper, doilies, stickers, ribbon, lace and crepe paper. Once we had all our valentines’ loot, we went to work using our creativity as we designed our Valentine school box or Valentine envelope. Who would have known while we were having fun, we were also improving our gross and fine motor skills by tracing, cutting and gluing.

We wrote special notes to Grandparents, neighbors and friends, then did our traditional doorbell ditch as we raced down the road hiding from our special Valentine. Do your children do this fun tradition anymore? If not, you should try it out this year! Not only did this give us a chance to release our creative energy, but it was a great way to practice our writing, spelling and reading.

In the majority of elementary schools, kids are still allowed to create their own box to receive Valentine’s from their classmates. There is no better way to get your kids excited and upbeat about Valentines than to let your child go crazy and design a box that they can show off to their friends at school. Let them go crazy, it’s a chance for them to use their imagination.

This year, we wanted to help you get those creative juices flowing with ideas for your children to do for the holiday that will improve those fine motor skills. Holidays create great opportunities for you to keep your kids actively working on projects that improve their visual tracking skills, letter recognition and muscle tone used for holding a pencil.

Here are some of our fun finds for Valentines.

Heart Attack

You may remember doing a heart attack for a sick friend or family member back when you were a kid, but heart attacks are also great for Valentines. While your child creates their Valentines box or makes a craft for class, help them start a heart attack for someone they know and love. Hint: Grandparents (like me) love this from their grandkids!

We all remember as kids when we first tried to use scissors and cut a straight line, and the more we used the scissors the better we got at keeping that straight line. For the heart attack, have your child practice cutting out their hearts and then write little notes on the hearts. It’s not only a cute and fun way to show how much they care, but it’s a great way for them to practice grasping the scissors to become more proficient at holding a pencil. This activity strengthens their hands and fingers for writing. Have fun doorbell ditching!

Valentine Notes

We all know writing 30 Valentines for every student in your child’s classroom would be a daunting task and could give them some major hand cramps, so don’t go too nuts. However, help your child write a personal note on a few of their closest friends’ valentines to help them with their writing skills. By writing notes, children can improve their spelling, practice their writing skills and have a better understanding of what they are writing or reading as they give and get notes from one another on Valentine’s Day.

Scavenger Hunt

This was one of my favorite activities to do with my kids while they were young and they never knew I was actually creating opportunities for them to think and solve problems. A fun activity to help better your child’s comprehension and critical thinking skills is to create a Valentine Scavenger Hunt. Make up some little reading notes and write some clues on red or pink heart shaped paper. As they try to solve the little puzzles, have little rewards as they succeed, and at the end have a big reward for them. It’s a fun activity, but it also helps children pay attention, focus on the “riddle,” figure out the meaning of the clue and interpret where to find the next clue. All great tools used for problem solving, comprehension and critical thinking.

Valentine’s Day is about showing how much we care about those close to us in our life. It is about expressing how much we love one another and what better way than to have a little fun with it. Go crazy and craft away with your children. There is no better way to spend Valentine’s Day than with those that you love in your life.

Integrated Learning Strategies is a Utah-based center dedicated to helping mainstream children and children with learning challenges achieve academic success. Our services provide kids with non-traditional tutoring programs within the Davis County, Kaysville, Layton, Syracuse, Farmington, and Centerville areas. Areas to find Integrated Learning Strategies include: Reading tutors in Kaysville, Math tutors in Kaysville, Common Core Tutors in Kaysville, Tutors in Utah, Utah Tutoring Programs