HOMEMADE VALENTINES

A little five year-old friend of mine loves to make crafts. When I go to visit, it is the first thing she asks me, "Do you have a craft?" So, with Valentine's coming up, her mom and I decided we should make Valentines for her friends. 

We used: red, pink, and white card stock, scissors, hole punch, heart cookie cutter, yarn, fancy scissors, glue, white chenille sticks, feathers, buttons, foam stickers, and ribbon scraps. Here's what they look like:

 Here's how to make them.

1. Fold the paper in half window way. 
2.Trace the heart cookie cutters, and cut out 2 at a time. 
3. Use the scraps to cut out smaller hearts with the fancy scissors.

4. With a hole punch, punch the sides of the hearts from side to side (two together).
5. Tie a long piece of yarn to one hole. Put a piece of tape on the other end to make "sewing" easier.
6. Tie off the end and trim, after lacing through the holes. 
7. Decorate the hearts with smaller hearts, stickers, buttons, and feathers. We put glue in a cup and use Q tips.

8. After decorating, we made a handle with either a white chenille stem, or a piece of ribbon, tying it through the top holes on the sides of the Valentine pocket.

9. Next, my little friend wrote a message on a strip of white card stock. Valentine's Day is a great time to share the love of Jesus with friends and family.

Each one is different -just like her friends! Each is made with love -just like her friends! Finally, she added the message and some small candies to the Valentine pockets.

JAN BRETT WEEK

Recently, I had the blessing of teaching eleven kindergarteners for three full days at a home school meeting. What fun! Our theme was Jan Brett. If you are not familiar with her books, I hope you will check them out. If you are, be sure to go to www.janbrett.com for activities and information about Jan and her books! These are the books I chose, focusing on one each day.

 To segue into Noah's Ark, I read this book on the last day as well.

 Each day I had a special treat for the kids to go along with the story. For The Mitten, we had mitten shaped sugar cookies. For The Hat, we had hedgehog cookies. Directions for these cookies are on the Jan Brett website. For The Three Snow Bears, I made snowballs from Oat Bites cereal, coating with with white chocolate. 

We also made crafts each day, and learned about the interesting animals featured in her books. 

 We laced and decorated mittens to hold the animals from the story.

 I printed off masks from the website, and we acted out the stories.

 The website had lots of interesting facts about the animals, and background for each of her titles. I also printed off the Dolch word lists. The Geo for Kids site had fact cards on hedgehogs and polar bears.

 After Annie and the Wild Animals, we read Noah's Ark and made a cute craft.

 For the last afternoon, I made heart-shaped cookies which the kids decorated with frosting and sprinkles.

 The last afternoon, I had two dads to help with all of our culminating activities.

 What a blessing to be with these wonderful kids!