Valentine's Day: Pre-School & Kindergarten Valentine Idea & Tips

Valentine’s Day can be a great opportunity for learning how to write one’s name and those of others. We give you some some tips throughout the post that have worked for us in making the process a bit more productive! If you have any suggestions to contribute, we would certainly appreciate them.

Here is one idea:

Materials

Primary ruled index cards (you could also use name plates or sentence strips cut up. These are available at educational stores, craft stores and dollar stores)
Pencil
Eraser
Heart stickers
Hole punch
Ribbon (to attach)

Directions

Our biggest suggestion with making Valentine cards is to start early (In January!). This allows you to work on a few of them each day or every few days (so the task is not overwhelming). Gauge your child’s energy and be sure to keep it positive. (Even if it it 1 name per day.) At the end of Valentine’s Day this year, consider buying a few sets while they are on sale for next year and then you have them ready to go. Be sure to buy a few extra to account for errors that are expected to occur with children this age.

Create a clear workspace such as a table or desk that you can sit at together. Have all your supplies handy beforehand.

In learning how to write there are many products that assist in helping children to form their letters effectively and clearly. When you use primary ruled cards such as the ones shown they give perameters as to where a part of a letter starts and stops (so for example the circular part of a capital “P” sits between the middle dotted line and the top line and the line portion (or “stick” as our kids tend to call it) extends down to the bottom line. Ruled cards come in many colours and can be embellished in many ways. You could add stickers as we did, you could draw a picture on the blank side, a splash of paint etc. The choosing of colours and adding items like stickers breaks up the actual writing portion of the task into smaller portions.

When learning to write, a pencil allows for corrections. Some younger children benefit from thicker pencils and/or special grips that slide onto the pencil (which can be purchased inexpensively at educational stores). As a teacher, I always found the white style of eraser most forgiving and easiest to use for the children. As erasers tend to get misplaced because of their size, cut them in half or thirds. Back-to-school sales allow you to stock up on these types of things (or look for even greater clearance sales post back-to-school in some areas). For some children a fancy pencil can be an incentive to use, while for others it can be a distraction.

Some pre-school or Kindergarten teachers will ask that you only put your child’s name on the Valentine so as assist in the large task of passing them out (not having to look through each one and decipher the names.) Be sure to ask for a class list and check what his/her requests are.

We show you one example of something to pass out for Valentine’s Day: books. We purchased these as a large set and then took the set apart and the kids could pick one for each classmate. If your child is older they could write in the books themselves (or you could glue in an index card) or write on labels and attach them to the books as we have also done in the past. Each of the books worked out to be less than 50 cents. Other inexpensive, useful options could include play dough, pencils etc. You certainly don’t have to include a small token- our kids most kept Valentines from their friends are the homemade cards!