February Fun!

We have had a lot of fun focusing on Valentine's day, Love, Friendship, hearts, the colors red and pink, and 1 John 4:7-8.


We made heart shaped decorations with beads and pipe cleaners.

The boys have loved poking these sticks over and over again into the Styrofoam.

We worked on a few Valentine's activities from Get 'Er Done Momma!  The boys had a great time putting together these puzzles.

 CA is practicing opening and closing the plastic heart containers in our sensory bin.

This picture cracked me up because JP asked for a tray while he was working on a Christmas puzzle of his choice! I loved it and quickly moved V-day things off a tray for him. I have got to get a few more trays for all of our fun!

We had a blast with this Valentine day card tray! This past Sunday we were asked to bring a surprise for our children's Sunday school teachers. We were asked to make a homemade card or do something special for them, so we had a blast making cards for them with all of our foam stickers. I allowed the boys to be creative with their cards and then I wrote messages inside of appreciation.

I also printed these very cute candy wrappers from Anything but Perfect. She has some amazing, super cute printables for gifts!! Check it out!

So I got some Hershey's candy bars and wrapped them up and added another foam sticker for a little more color. We usually attend both services at our church as we teach at one service, so my sweet boys have quite a few teachers. :) Gotta share the love!

JP asked to work with our salt trays and use the animal erasers from the sensory bin! He LOVES the salt! Can you tell from this face?

Then one day we made Silly Heart Puppets. I got this awesome idea from My Creative Family.

These puppets were a hit! They have now been named and are played with often! Meet "Orange" and "Blue"! Quite fitting!

We also used our heart shaped ice cube trays to make red ice cubes. The boys thought this was so fun! Ice is such a fun thing to work with! I think I may have used too much red food coloring as I got too nervous about the food coloring staining my tile, so this activity ended faster than they would have liked. :)

I found the coolest activity with Hershey kisses, and a paper plate at Reading Confetti called Hunting for Kisses! The boys absolutely LOVED this game! I used our red bingo do-a-dot marker to make a heart shape with numbers inside it and then placed numbers on the bottom of the Hershey kisses. I then hid the red and silver kisses around the house while the boys stayed in one room. Then they ran from room to room to find them all! They loved searching for them! Then when they found them all they matched their numbered kisses to the numbered slots on the heart. We played 3 times the first time I introduced the game and then again twice the next day.

I can see this activity modified for so many fun activities. And the Hershey kisses were a gift to my hubby and I at church on Sunday, so it was frugal too! :)

We also made a "Heart Attack" door of love as a welcoming Valentine's gift to Daddy! I saw this idea somewhere in blogosphere (sorry I don't remember where or I would credit that blogger). So we made this "door of love" on the door entering our home through the garage for Daddy who works so hard for our family so that I can be home with these precious boys! We cut out hearts and wrote what we love about Daddy on them. He said the best part of his day was driving in the garage to see all of these notes! 

We still have more Valentine's activities to finish the rest of this week! I think we could work on hearts, love, friendship and Valentine's Day all month, but we will switch gears next week. But I have loved it and I've LOVED all the amazing ideas I keep seeing on blogs!

What have you and yours been up to this week?

Linked up to these great linky parties!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today was a fun, family day! I shared the day by expressing love to my three special men through food!

For breakfast we shared heart shaped banana pancakes.

CA is really more excited about his Valentine candy than the pancake!

I saw this idea called a "Heart Attack" somewhere in blogosphere (sorry I don't remember where or I would credit that blogger). So we made this "door of love" on the door entering our home through the garage for Daddy who works so hard for our family so that I can be home with these precious boys! We cut out hearts and wrote what we love about Daddy on them. He said the best part of his day was driving in the garage to see all of these notes! 

 In honor of Valentine's Day we had a red dinner with spaghetti with red sauce, red jello in the shapes of hearts, strawberries, and red cranberry juice! It was so fun to use our china and fancy glasses!

I even tried to use a heart shaped cookie cutter for sauce. Try is the key word here.

Here are my three loves ready to enjoy dinner in the dark by candlelight. It didn't last too long because we needed to see our food. :)

After dinner we played Candyland and then the boys and I baked chocolate chip cookies together.

What a fun day we had expressing more love to each other!  Although we try to express our love and appreciation daily!

Valentine's Day Learning Trays

I have found so many awesome ideas for Valentine's Learning Trays from other amazing, talented blogging mamas. Here are the trays we will be working on during the next two weeks. My February/Valentine's plans and ideas are booming in my brain! I am so excited about all of the fun and learning we will have in the next two weeks! I hope you and yours have an awesome month sharing love, friendship and extra TLC with each other and others.

Heart Sticks in Sugar Container
I found this awesome idea at Our Country Road

Beads with Pipe Cleaners

I plan to have the boys make the pipe cleaners into hearts with the beads on them.

Their completed hearts ready to be hung in the window. :)

Heart Sticks into Styrofoam

I also found Valentine cupcakes toppers to add to this activity.

Number Matching

The boys will count the hearts on the cards, then match the clothespin with the corresponding number.

Heart Cutting Practice
I found this awesome activity here The Princess and the Tot.
I will teach the boys how to cut on the black lines to make hearts.

Heart Stickers
I will have the boys peel the backing off of the stickers and just have fun making cards/crafts!

 Cookie Cutter Activity
I plan to have the boys  use the cookie cutters to sort, trace, and organize by size.
May even have to pull out the red, white, and pink play doh to use with these!

Sensory Bin
We will also continue to use our Valentine sensory bin which has lots of fun containers to open and close, fun erasers to sort and make patterns with, and lots of pom poms to put in the heart ice trays for fine motor skills. See my post here all about it.

Linked up to these awesome linky parties!

Valentine's Day Sensory Bin

Here is our Valentine's Day/February Sensory Bin! I am having a lot of fun making sensory bins for my boys!

Here is a picture and list of the materials I used before I assembled the bin.

Materials:
Red Mail Box from Target
Heart Foam Shaped stickers from Walmart
Valentine theme Erasers from Walmart
Heart erasers from Target
Heart shaped ice cube trays from Target
Heart shaped boxes from The Dollar Tree
Red, Purple, and White pom poms

The boys were so excited to watch me take these pictures and then assemble the bin that they wanted to "play" with the bin right away! Here they are exploring it for the first time. JP quickly got the tongs out to use also.

I see many activities of sorting, tonging, transferring, patterns, and so much more in our future with this bin. I also plan to leave them a message in the mail box too each day in Feb. Looking forward to so many fun activities for Valentine's Day in February with these two sweet love bugs!

Check out the awesome Linky Parties that I linked up to this week! 
I consider this activity frugal and thrifty as I bought most or all of the items at the $1 section of Target or at The Dollar Tree. I will also use many of the items in the bin for other activities in the 2 weeks to come. I also reuse my pom poms in each sensory bin. :)