Thanks so much to Carolyn Clegg for this – her response to my desperate plea for Valentine's Day help! You are a lifesaver, Carolyn – thank-you thank-you thank-you! 🙂

There are literally hundreds of crafts and activities floating around on the Internet to choose from this Valentine’s Day season (look to the end of this post for a list of links). The trick for me was finding a couple that were age appropriate for Eden, my 2 ½ year-old. I know from experience that I can only keep her in one spot for so long! So, the experiment began with two little activities…

Marble Heart Painting

Supplies: Construction Paper, Marbles, Shoe box (or tray with a lip), Paint (remember marbles are a choking hazard, so please be careful)

Cut hearts out of your paper and lay flat on the bottom of your box. Place your marbles into the paint. Cover the marbles completely with your paint and drop them into the box. Roll your marbles around by slightly tilting the box in different directions.

Puffy Valentine’s Day Hearts

Eden does like to paint. So, I thought I would have her try out a different texture of paint for her Valentine hearts. I don’t think she really noticed the difference until she dove her hands into the mixture and proceeded to smear it all over the place! The results were pretty fun. This paint really does dry puffy.

Supplies: Shaving Cream, Elmers glue, Tempra Paint, Poster Board or Thick Paper, Paint Brushes

Mix your shaving cream, glue and tempra paint to make a puffy paint texture. Give children paint brushes and let them paint onto poster board hearts. The paint dries puffy.

Valentine’s Day Craft & Activity Links

http://familyfun.go.com/valentines-day/

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/valentine/

http://familycrafts.about.com/od/valentinesday/a/valentmain.htm

http://holidays.kaboose.com/valentines-day/

http://www.nickjr.com/valentines-day/