22 Valentine’s Day Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
The seasons and holidays are a great opportunity to inspire creativity with handmade crafts. It’s never too early to encourage your kids, including toddlers, to do crafts.
This list of 22 Valentine’s Day activities for toddlers offers a variety of craft ideas for littles who want to feel like a big kid. Most of these projects do not require a trip to the craft store for special supplies. You can set these activities up for your toddler with things you likely already have at home.
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22 Valentine’s Day Activities for Toddlers to Try
Grab your favorite craft supplies, like crayons, glue, scissors, pom poms, paper bags, paints, heart-shaped cookie cutters, and construction paper (or cardstock). Then, print the templates we provide below.
1. Create Valentine’s Day Crafts with Handprints
Homemade Valentine’s Day crafts are a great way to keep toddlers busy and teach crucial life skills like hand-eye coordination and muscle movement. This fun, hands-on project lets toddlers create beautiful Valentine’s crafts with messy hands and feet.
2. Heart Shaped Book Marks
Crafting these fun heart-shaped bookmarks using popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners is a fun and creative activity. Begin by coloring your popsicle sticks in the color of your choice. Then, wrap vibrant colored pipe cleaners around the tip of the craft stick, as shown below. These handmade bookmarks add a personal touch to your reading experience and make for thoughtful and unique gifts.
3. Draw Unique Printable Preschool Valentine’s Cards
These blank printable postcards are perfect for letting your toddler’s creativity shine through while practicing their coloring, cutting, and writing skills. You can print these templates on colored construction paper or regular cardstock. Provide scissors, glue, and coloring utensils, and let your kids get as creative as possible.
4. Keep It Simple with Printable Color Valentine Cards
These colorable Valentine’s Cards are easy to print at home for toddlers to color and create. With sweet messages on each card, this craft makes a great Valentine’s gift or a project in anticipation of V-day. Let your toddler color their cards and give them to family or friends on the big day.
5. Design a Valentine’s Day Themed Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts are an exciting and interactive pastime for kids of all ages. But it’s especially fun for helping toddlers learn object identification and how to find things. These sheets list the objects to find as written words or as images with words for younger toddlers who can’t read but want to search unassisted.
Related articles:
- 23 Valentine’s Day Paper Crafts for Kids
- 30 Free Printable Valentine Cards for Kids
- 15 Best Valentine’s Day Books For Kids (Must Reads)
- Fun Valentine Puppy Heart Craft For Preschoolers
6. Gnome Handprint Valentine
The gnome handprint craft for kids is a heartwarming and imaginative activity that makes for a perfect Valentine’s Day project. By using their own handprints, children can transform them into adorable gnome characters, adding a touch of whimsy to the holiday.
Your kiddo can personalize their gnomes to reflect their creativity. This craft not only provides a fun and engaging way for children to express themselves but also results in charming keepsakes that can be shared with family and friends.
Don’t forget to explore this fun cactus handprint craft!
7. Serve Heart-Shaped Chicken Pot Pies for Valentine
Chicken pot pie is a delicious and hearty recipe that appeals to even the pickiest eaters. And it’s a great way to trick your toddlers into eating their veggies. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to shape your pasty dough into three pieces and fill it with your favorite chicken and veggies pot pie recipe.
8. Use Valentine’s Day to Practice Numbers
These Valentine’s Day number cards are a fun way to practice counting and number recognition. Set up the large counting mat, spread the counting cards, and supply many counters. Valentine’s candy hearts work great. But you can also use craft supplies like pompoms or buttons.
9. Improve Hand Coordination with Valentine Lacing Cards
Lacing cards–also called sewing cards–are a neat holiday craft for preschoolers. They can customize their cards and practice their handwriting skills. And once you punch holes into the cards, they can practice lacing them with a string or ribbon. This set of threading cards includes a cupcake, lion, zebra, cards, and hearts. Or these four printable cards from Seam Whisperer include hearts and a purse.
10. Make Love Bugs from Paper Plates
This lovebug paper plate Valentine’s craft can be a creative way for toddlers to practice coloring and gluing skills. Let them try their skills at cutting (using safety scissors like these). But you can also let your toddlers write a message on the bottom and use this project for a handmade Valentine’s card.
11. Send Your Valentine into Outer Space with a Straw Rocket
This rocket-themed Valentine’s project is excellent for those who don’t like the typical love-themes of the day. All toddlers will enjoy using their imaginations to tour space with their Valentine’s rocket. You can provide the supplies and let your toddler assemble the project themselves or create it to give to your toddler for a fun and easy Valentine’s Day activity.
12. Get Creative with a Painted Marble Heart Craft
Marble painting crafts are always a delight for toddlers because there’s no worry about the right way to do it. Your toddler can get as creative as they want with their paint to create unique designs on their heart background. Setting up a cardboard box border can eliminate any messes to clean up.
13. Explore Watercolor Painting with Doily Decor
Watercolor painting is one of the best projects for toddlers because it’s easy to clean up and doesn’t stain if your kiddo misses the mark with their brush. Doilies are a good craft supply to keep on hand (or you can use coffee filters that you cut into shapes) for seasonal projects.
14. Have Some Science Fun with Baking Soda Hearts
Introducing your toddlers to the magic of science is never too early. These fizzy baking soda hearts are toddler-safe using everyday household ingredients like baking soda and vinegar. You may want to do the food coloring and pour the mixture into the silicone molds.
15. Prepare Toddler-Approved Play Dough
Playdough is a fun sensory material to provide to kids of all ages. But the clay you buy at the store is sometimes safe to give your young ones. It’s much safer to create a safe dough at home. You can try this edile chocolate frosting playdough from The Craft at Home Family, these DIY Valentine hearts from Two Kids and a Coupon, or these playdough mats by Crafty Kids Play. This neat playdough craft from Crystal and Comp uses Kool-Aid as a source of color.
Related craft: 23 Easy Homemade Playdough Recipes
16. DIY a Keepsake Heart Handprint Craft
This heart handprint craft lets you capture your child’s hand size forever, encapsulated in paint on a sturdy tile base. You can draw an XO heart border with X and O ink stamps or a marker. Inside the heart, you can stamp your child’s painted hands into the middle and jot down the year of creation for a fun memory Valentine that adults are sure to enjoy.
17. Salt Dough Fingerprint Heart
The heart-shaped salt dough fingerprint keepsake activity for kids is a heartwarming and timeless craft that captures the essence of childhood in a tangible form. In this creative project, children get to make lasting memories by pressing their tiny fingerprints into heart-shaped salt dough, creating a personalized and precious keepsake.
Don’t forget to try our salt dough handprint to capture a precious moment in time! It’s a wonderful way to preserve memories and create a lasting keepsake.
18. Decorate a Paper Plate Valentine’s Wreath
Decorating your home with your toddler’s seasonal craft projects is a great way to show off your child’s talents and save money on store-bought decor. This Valentine’s wreath is easy to create with a paper plate, some crayons, and printed, colored shapes from this template. Another paper plate wreath craft is this one from Home School Preschool.
19. Fingerpaint Valentine Hearts for Festive Fun
Fingerpainting is a craft that all kids enjoy, and it’s easy to customize to the different seasons. You can print out these heart templates with your home computer. Then, give your toddlers your choice of paint and let them get creative by using their fingerprints to trace the lines instead of a paintbrush. An alternative option is to use ink pads in place of paint.
20. Give The Gift of a Game for Valentine’s
Tic Tac Toe is a simple yet entertaining game that even toddlers will enjoy. This creative Valentine’s idea is a great gift for toddlers who attend preschool or daycare and want to bring gifts. You can use Valentine-themed candies for the Xs and Os and a cellophane bag to hold the Valentine Tic Tac Toe board. Use whatever string or twine you have on hand to secure the bag closed and attach a sucker.
21. Inspire Your Kids to Make Puppets from Paper Bags
Paper bag puppets are an interesting way to engage your toddler’s imagination. And they can be great projects to occupy your toddler with a detailed craft. You’ll need specific supplies for this Valentine’s bug puppet craft, like googly eyes, pipe cleaners, paper bags, and Washi tape.
22. Investigate Painting with Pom Poms and a Clothespin
This neat Valentine’s craft teaches kids about being resourceful and making art projects from unexpected items. How neat is it that you can use a clothespin as a paintbrush and crafting pom poms as your bristles? The chunky size of the wood makes this craft great for young toddlers.
Valentine’s Day Must-Reads
Don’t let the fun stop! Dive into a world of captivating stories that resonate with the joy of childhood, making them the perfect addition to your Valentine’s Day activities. These heartwarming and delightful books will add love and magic to your Valentine’s Day celebrations with the little ones.
- “Love You Forever” by Robert Munsch
- “The Day It Rained Hearts” by Felicia Bond
- “Guess How Much I Love You” by Sam McBratney
- “Llama Llama I Love You” by Anna Dewdney
- “The Biggest Valentine Ever” by Steven Kroll
- “Pete the Cat: Valentine’s Day Is Cool” by James Dean
Keep Your Toddler Busy with Valentine’s Day Activities
You’ll find a Valentine’s Day activity to occupy your toddler, whether they like to paint, color, or create sensory projects like Playdough and puppets. With 22 Valentine’s activities to complete, you’ll have ideas for the days leading up to the day of love. Your toddlers will enjoy displaying their crafts and giving them as gifts to family and friends.
Join us over on Pinterest for more crafts and activities for kids!
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